Effects of thermal fluctuations on thermal inflation
  The mechanism of thermal inflation, a relatively short period of accelerated
expansion after primordial inflation, is a desirable ingredient for a certain
class of particle physics models if they are not to be in contention with the
cosmology of the early Universe. Though thermal inflation is most simply
described in terms of a thermal effective potential, a thermal environment also
gives rise to thermal fluctuations that must be taken into account. We
numerically study the effects of these thermal fluctuations using lattice
simulations. We conclude that though they do not ruin the thermal inflation
scenario, the phase transition at the end of thermal inflation proceeds through
phase mixing and is therefore not accompanied by the formations of bubbles nor
appreciable amplitude of gravitational waves.
