Mass varying neutrinos, quintessence, and the accelerating expansion of the Universe

2009/11/30 by G. Y. Chitov, Gennady Y. Chitov, T. August +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark energy #De Sitter universe #Fermion #Massless particle #Mathematical physics #Metric expansion of space #Neutrino #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quintessence #Scalar field #Universe #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.83.045033

published as Phys.Rev.D83:045033,2011 · 29 pages, 7 figures. V. 3: Analysis of the dynamics of the Universe and some refs. added; extended version to be published in PRD

arxiv created 2011/02/07 · openalex publication_date 2011/02/25 · arxiv updated 2015/03/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We analyze the mass varying neutrino 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 nontrivial 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 a zero \ensuremathΛ term. The present mass varying neutrino 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\ensuremath∼10^\ensuremath-3 eV to match the present DE density, we can obtain the present neutrino mass in the range m\ensuremath∼10^\ensuremath-2--1 eV and consistent estimates for other parameters of the Universe.

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