  Dark strings have recently been suggested to exist in new models of dark
matter that explain the excessive electronic production in the galaxy. We study
the interaction of these dark strings with semilocal strings which are
solutions of the bosonic sector of the Standard Model in the limit
$\sin^2\theta_{\rm w}=1$, where $\theta_{\rm w}$ is the Weinberg angle. While
embedded Abelian-Higgs strings exist for generic values of the coupling
constants, we show that semilocal solutions with non-vanishing condensate
inside the string core exist only above a critical value of the Higgs to gauge
boson mass ratio when interacting with dark strings. Above this critical value,
which is greater than unity, the energy per unit length of the semilocal-dark
string solutions is always smaller than that of the embedded Abelian-Higgs-dark
string solutions and we show that Abelian-Higgs-dark strings become unstable
above this critical value. Different from the non-interacting case, we would
thus expect semilocal strings to be stable for values of the Higgs to gauge
boson mass ratio larger than unity. Moreover, the one-parameter family of
solutions present in the non-interacting case ceases to exist when semilocal
strings interact with dark strings.
