  It has been suggested that cosmological dark matter may include a population
of vortons (meaning small centrifugally stabilised cosmic string loops) as an
outcome of (non-standard) electroweak symmetry breaking. The implications for
this conjecture of recent theoretical progress on superconducting string theory
are discussed, particularly in relation to problems of stability. It is
tentatively concluded that if the underlying field theory provides a carrier
field with mass not too far below that of the relevant Higgs mass (which may be
a few hundred G.e.V.) electroweak string formation may conceivably produce
enough vortons (with an extended mass distribution peaking perhaps at several
hundred T.e.V.) to provide a marginally significant dark matter contribution.
