2002/06/30 by Rahul Dave, R. Dave, Robert R. Caldwell +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astrophysics #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cold dark matter #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmological constant #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark energy #Equation of state #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Lambda-CDM model #Physics #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Quintessence #Theoretical physics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.66.023516
published as Phys.Rev.D66:023516,2002 · 18 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D. Typos in transformed variable equation fixed
arxiv created 2002/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2002/07/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We analyze the evolution of energy density fluctuations in cosmological scenarios with a mixture of cold dark matter and quintessence, in which the quintessence field is modeled by a constant equation of state. We obtain analytic expressions for the time evolution of the quintessence perturbations in models with light fields. The fluctuations behave analogously to a driven harmonic oscillator, where the driving term arises from the inhomogeneities in the surrounding cosmological fluid. We demonstrate that the homogeneous solution, determined by the initial conditions, is completely subdominant to the inhomogeneous solution for physically realistic scenarios. Thus we show that the cosmic microwave background anisotropy predicted for such models is highly insensitive to the initial conditions in the quintessence field.