DOMAIN-WALL FORMATION IN LATE-TIME PHASE-TRANSITIONS

We investigate domain-wall formation in late-time phase transitions. We find that, as in the invisible-axion-domain-wall phenomenon, thermal effects alone are insufficient to drive different regions of the Universe to different parts of the disconnected vacuum manifold. This suggests that domain walls do not form unless either there is some supplemental (but perhaps not unreasonable) dynamics to localize the scalar field responsible for the phase transition to the low-temperature maximum (to an extraordinary precision) before the onset of the phase transition, or there is some nonthermal mechanism to produce large fluctuations in the scalar field. The fact that domain-wall production is not a robust prediction of late-time transitions may suggest future directions in model building.