Mass Varying Neutrinos, Quintessence, and the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

29 pages, 7 figures. V. 3: Analysis of the dynamics of the Universe and some refs. added; extended version to be published in

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevD.83.045033

We analyze the Mass Varying Neutrino (MaVaN) scenario. We consider a minimal model of massless Dirac fermions coupled to a scalar field, mainly in the framework of finite temperature quantum field theory. We demonstrate that the mass equation we find has non-trivial solutions only for special classes of potentials, and only within certain temperature intervals. We give most of our results for the Ratra-Peebles Dark Energy (DE) potential. The thermal (temporal) evolution of the model is analyzed. Following the time arrow, the stable, metastable and unstable phases are predicted. The model predicts that the present Universe is below its critical temperature and accelerates. At the critical point the Universe undergoes a first-order phase transition from the (meta)stable oscillatory regime to the unstable rolling regime of the DE field. This conclusion agrees with the original idea of quintessence as a force making the Universe roll towards its true vacuum with zero \Lambda-term. The present MaVaN scenario is free from the coincidence problem, since both the DE density and the neutrino mass are determined by the scale M of the potential. Choosing M ~ 10^{-3} eV to match the present DE density, we can obtain the present neutrino mass in the range m ~ 10^{-2}-1 eV and consistent estimates for other parameters of the Universe.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Mass Varying Neutrinos, Quintessence, and the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Mass Varying Neutrinos, Quintessence, and the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Mass Varying Neutrinos, Quintessence, and the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-660560

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.