Natural Quintessence with Gauge Coupling Unification

We show that a positive accelerating universe can be obtained simply by the dynamics of a non-abelian gauge group. It is the condensates of the chiral fields that obtain a negative power potential, below the condensation scale, and allow for a quintessence interpretation of these fields. The only free parameters in this model are $N_c$ and $N_f$ and the number of dynamically gauge singlet bilinear fields $\phi$ generated below the condensation scale. We show that it is possible to have unification of all coupling constants, including the standard and non standard model couplings, while having an acceptable phenomenology of $\phi$ as the cosmological constant. This is done without any fine tuning of the initial conditions. The problem of coincidence (why the universe has only recently started an accelerating period) is not solved but it is put at the same level as what the particle content of the standard model is.Comment: minor changes(discussion on field normalization included), reference added, accepted in Phy.Rev.Lett., 5 pages,LateX,2 Figure

Cosmological models from quintessence

A generalized quintessence model is presented which corresponds to a richer vacuum structure that, besides a time-dependent, slowly varying scalar field, contains a varying cosmological term. From first principles we determine a number of scalar-field potentials that satisfy the constraints imposed by the field equations and conservations laws, both in the conventional and generalized quintessence models. Besides inverse-power law solutions, these potentials are given in terms of hyperbolic functions or the twelve Jacobian elliptic functions, and are all related to the luminosity distance by means of an integral equation. Integration of this equation for the different solutions leads to a large family of cosmological models characterized by luminosity distance-redshift relations. Out of such models, only four appear to be able to predict a required accelerating universe conforming to observations on supernova Ia, at large or moderate redshifts.Comment: 9 pages, RevTex, to appear in Phys. Rev.

A New Cosmological Model of Quintessence and Dark Matter

We propose a new class of quintessence models in which late times oscillations of a scalar field give rise to an effective equation of state which can be negative and hence drive the observed acceleration of the universe. Our ansatz provides a unified picture of quintessence and a new form of dark matter we call "Frustrated Cold Dark Matter" (FCDM). FCDM inhibits gravitational clustering on small scales and could provide a natural resolution to the core density problem for disc galaxy halos. Since the quintessence field rolls towards a small value, constraints on slow-roll quintessence models are safely circumvented in our model.Comment: Revised. Important new results added in response to referees comment

Phenomenology of a realistic accelerating universe using only Planck-scale physics

Modern data is showing increasing evidence that the Universe is accelerating. So far, all attempts to account for the acceleration have required some fundamental dimensionless quantities to be extremely small. We show how a class of scalar field models (which may emerge naturally from superstring theory) can account for acceleration which starts in the present epoch with all the potential parameters O(1) in Planck units.Comment: 4 pages including 4 figures. Final version accepted for publication in PRL with expanded discussion of the relationship to other quintessence research. No changes to our own wor

An analysis of cosmological perturbations in hydrodynamical and field representations

Density fluctuations of fluids with negative pressure exhibit decreasing time behaviour in the long wavelength limit, but are strongly unstable in the small wavelength limit when a hydrodynamical approach is used. On the other hand, the corresponding gravitational waves are well behaved. We verify that the instabilities present in density fluctuations are due essentially to the hydrodynamical representation; if we turn to a field representation that lead to the same background behaviour, the instabilities are no more present. In the long wavelength limit, both approachs give the same results. We show also that this inequivalence between background and perturbative level is a feature of negative pressure fluid. When the fluid has positive pressure, the hydrodynamical representation leads to the same behaviour as the field representation both at the background and perturbative levels.Comment: Latex file, 18 page

Dilatonic Interpretation of the Quintessence?

We discuss the possibility that "quintessential effects", recently displayed by large scale observations, may be consistently described in the context of the low-energy string effective action, and we suggest a possible approach to the problem of the cosmic coincidence based on the link between the strength of the dilaton couplings and the cosmological state of our Universe.Comment: 6 pages, Revtex, four figures included using epsfig. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Gravitational field of vacuumless defects

It has been recently shown that topological defects can arise in symmetry breaking models where the scalar field potential $V(\phi)$ has no minima and is a monotonically decreasing function of $|\phi|$. Here we study the gravitational fields produced by such vacuumless defects in the cases of both global and gauge symmetry breaking. We find that a global monopole has a strongly repulsive gravitational field, and its spacetime has an event horizon similar to that in de Sitter space. A gauge monopole spacetime is essentially that of a magnetically charged black hole. The gravitational field of a global string is repulsive and that of a gauge string is attractive at small distances and repulsive at large distances. Both gauge and global string spacetimes have singularities at a finite distance from the string core.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, 6 Postscript figure

Curvature of the universe and the dark energy potential

The flatness of an accelerating universe model (characterized by a dark energy scalar field $\chi$) is mimicked from a curved model that is filled with, apart from the cold dark matter component, a quintessencelike scalar field $Q$. In this process, we characterize the original scalar potential $V(Q)$ and the mimicked scalar potential $V(\chi)$ associated to the scalar fields $Q$ and $\chi$, respectively. The parameters of the original model are fixed through the mimicked quantities that we relate to the present astronomical data, such that the equation state parameter $w_{_{\chi}}$ and the dark energy density parameter $\Omega_{\chi}$.Comment: References 7 and 8 have been corrected: (7) Riess et al. 1998, AJ, 116, 1009 and (8) Perlmutter et al. 1999, ApJ, 517, 56

A Dynamical Solution to the Problem of a Small Cosmological Constant and Late-time Cosmic Acceleration

Increasing evidence suggests that most of the energy density of the universe consists of a dark energy component with negative pressure, a ``cosmological constant" that causes the cosmic expansion to accelerate. In this paper, we address the puzzle of why this component comes to dominate the universe only recently rather than at some much earlier epoch. We present a class of theories based on an evolving scalar field where the explanation is based entirely on internal dynamical properties of the solutions. In the theories we consider, the dynamics causes the scalar field to lock automatically into a negative pressure state at the onset of matter-domination such that the present epoch is the earliest possible time, consistent with nucleosynthesis restrictions, when it can start to dominate.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure