English

Approximate $w_\phi\sim\Omega_\phi$ Relations in Quintessence Models

Astrophysics 2014-11-18 v4 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Quintessence field is a widely-studied candidate of dark energy. There is "tracker solution" in quintessence models, in which evolution of the field ϕ\phi at present times is not sensitive to its initial conditions. When the energy density of dark energy is neglectable (Ωϕ1\Omega_\phi\ll1), evolution of the tracker solution can be well analysed from "tracker equation". In this paper, we try to study evolution of the quintessence field from "full tracker equation", which is valid for all spans of Ωϕ\Omega_\phi. We get stable fixed points of wϕw_\phi and Ωϕ\Omega_\phi (noted as w^ϕ\hat w_\phi and Ω^ϕ\hat\Omega_\phi) from the "full tracker equation", i.e., wϕw_\phi and Ωϕ\Omega_\phi will always approach w^ϕ\hat w_\phi and Ω^ϕ\hat\Omega_\phi respectively. Since w^ϕ\hat w_\phi and Ω^ϕ\hat\Omega_\phi are analytic functions of ϕ\phi, analytic relation of w^ϕΩ^ϕ\hat w_\phi\sim\hat\Omega_\phi can be obtained, which is a good approximation for the wϕΩϕw_\phi\sim\Omega_\phi relation and can be obtained for the most type of quintessence potentials. By using this approximation, we find that inequalities w^ϕ<wϕ\hat w_\phi<w_\phi and Ω^ϕ<Ωϕ\hat\Omega_\phi<\Omega_\phi are statisfied if the wϕw_\phi (or w^ϕ\hat w_\phi) is decreasing with time. In this way, the potential U(ϕ)U(\phi) can be constrained directly from observations, by no need of solving the equations of motion numerically.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0711.4682,
  title  = {Approximate $w_\phi\sim\Omega_\phi$ Relations in Quintessence Models},
  author = {Mingxing Luo and Qiping Su},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.4682},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

9 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:48:34.397Z