Runaway dilatonic domain walls
  We explore the stability of domain wall and bubble solutions in theories with
compact extra dimensions. The energy density stored inside of the wall can
destabilize the volume modulus of a compactification, leading to solutions
containing either a timelike singularity or a region where space
decompactifies, depending on the metric ansatz. We determine the structure of
such solutions both analytically and using numerical simulations, and analyze
how they arise in compactifications of Einstein--Maxwell theory and Type IIB
string theory. The existence of instabilities has important implications for
the formation of networks of topological defects and the population of vacua
during eternal inflation.
