Related papers: Cosmological Tracking Solutions
Scalar field models of quintessence typically require that the expectation value of the field today is of order the Planck mass, if we want them to explain the observed acceleration of the Universe. This suggests that we should be…
The problem of the cosmic coincidence is a longstanding puzzle. This conundrum may be solved by introducing a coupling between the two dark sectors. In this Letter, we study a coupled quintessence scenario in which the scalar field evolves…
The quantum field theoretic prediction for the vacuum energy density leads to a value for the effective cosmological constant that is incorrect by between 60 to 120 orders of magnitude. We review an old proposal of replacing Einstein's…
The Einstein-Klein-Gordon field equations are solved in a inhomogeneous shear-free universe containing a material fluid, a self-interacting scalar field, a variable cosmological term, and a heat flux. A quintessence-dominated scenario…
The principles of General Relativity allow for a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can possibly be interpreted at least partially in terms of quantum-fluctuations of matter fields. Depending on sign and magnitude it can cause…
We propose that dark energy in the form of a scalar field could effectively couple to dark matter inhomogeneities. Through this coupling energy could be transferred to/from the scalar field, which could possibly enter an accelerated regime.…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
We discuss the general dynamical behaviors of quintessence field, in particular, the general conditions for tracking and thawing solutions are discussed. We explain what the tracking solutions mean and in what sense the results depend on…
Many candidate models for dark energy are based on the existence of a classical scalar field. In the context of Quantum Field Theory (QFT), we briefly discus the condensation of such a field from a light quantum scalar field produced by…
The accelerated expansion of the universe demands presence of an exotic matter, namely the dark energy. Though the cosmological constant fits this role very well, a scalar field minimally coupled to gravity, or quintessence, can also be…
I describe a new class of quintessence+CDM models in which late time scalar field oscillations can give rise to both quintessence and cold dark matter. Additionally, a versatile ansatz for the luminosity distance is used to reconstruct the…
The problem of dark energy can be roughly stated as the proposition and validation of a cosmological model that can explain the phenomenon of the accelerated expansion of the Universe. This problem is an open discussion topic in modern…
We present a simple cosmological model in which a single, non-minimally coupled scalar field with a quartic potential is responsible for both inflation at early times and acceleration at late times. Little or no fine tuning is needed to…
We argue that, for generic string compactifications, dark energy is likely to signal the beginning of the end of our universe, perhaps even through decompactification, with possible implications for the cosmological coincidence problem.…
Cosmological measurements of the radiation density in the early universe can be used as a sensitive probe of physics beyond the standard model. Observations of primordial light element abundances have long been used to place non-trivial…
We study the role that tachyon fields may play in cosmology as compared to the well-established use of minimally coupled scalar fields. We first elaborate on a kind of correspondence existing between tachyons and minimally coupled scalar…
We present exact kinematic consistency relations for cosmological structures that do not vanish at equal times and can thus be measured in surveys. These rely on cross-correlations between the density and velocity, or momentum, fields.…
Observations seem to indicate that our universe is presently accelerating due to the presence of dark energy. Quintessence represents a possible way to model the dark energy. In these proceedings, we briefly review its main properties.
We consider a model of interacting cosmological constant/quintessence, where dark matter and dark energy behave as, respectively, two coexisting phases of a fluid, a thermally excited Bose component and a condensate, respectively. In a…
The accelerating universe is closely related to today's version of the cosmological constant problem; fine-tuning and coincidence problems. We show how successfully the scalar-tensor theory, a rather rigid theoretical idea, provides us with…