English

Quintessence and Thermal Matter

Astrophysics 2009-11-10 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We investigate the effects of thermal interactions on tracking models of quintessence. We show that even Planck-suppressed interactions between matter and the quintessence field can alter its evolution. The dark energy equation of state is in many cases strongly affected by matter couplings. We obtain a bound on the coupling between quintessence and relativistic relic particles such as the photon or neutrino.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0402541,
  title  = {Quintessence and Thermal Matter},
  author = {S. Hsu and B. Murray},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0402541},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

LaTex, 11 pages, 5 figures. Minor additions. Version to appear in Physics Letters B

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