Interacting quintessence from a variational approach. I. Algebraic couplings

We present a new approach to build models of quintessence interacting with dark or baryonic matter. We use a variational approach for relativistic fluids to realize an effective description of matter fields at the Lagrangian level. The coupling is introduced directly in the action by considering a s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. D, Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology Vol. 91; no. 12
Main Authors: Bohmer, Christian G, Tamanini, Nicola, Wright, Matthew
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: 02.06.2015
Subjects:
Algebra
Astronomical models
Construction
Cosmology
Couplings
Degrees of freedom
Dynamical systems
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical models
ISSN:1550-7998, 1550-2368
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We present a new approach to build models of quintessence interacting with dark or baryonic matter. We use a variational approach for relativistic fluids to realize an effective description of matter fields at the Lagrangian level. The coupling is introduced directly in the action by considering a single function mixing the dynamical degrees of freedom of the theory. The resulting gravitational field equations are derived by variations with respect to the independent variables. New interesting phenomenology can be obtained at both small scales, where new screening mechanisms for scalar fields can be realized, and large scales, where one finds an original and rich class of interacting quintessence models. The background cosmology of two of these models is studied in detail using dynamical system techniques. We find a variety of interesting results: for instance, these models contain dark energy dominated late-time attractors and scaling solutions, both with early-time matter dominated epochs and a possible inflationary origin. In general this new approach provides the starting point for future in-depth studies on new interacting quintessence models.
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ISSN:1550-7998
1550-2368
DOI:10.1103/physrevd.91.123002