Dynamics of Interacting Quintessence Models: Observational Constraints

Abstract

Interacting quintessence models have been proposed to explain or, at least, alleviate the coincidence problem of late cosmic acceleration. In this paper we are concerned with two aspects of these kind of models: (i) the dynamical evolution of the model of Chimento et al. [L.P. Chimento, A.S. Jakubi, D. Pavon, and W. Zimdahl, Phys. Rev. D 67, 083513 (2003).], i.e., whether its cosmological evolution gives rise to a right sequence of radiation, dark matter and dark energy dominated eras, and (ii) whether the dark matter dark energy ratio asymptotically evolves towards a non-zero constant. After showing that the model correctly reproduces these eras, we correlate three data sets that constrain the interaction at three redshift epochs: $z\le 10^4$, $z=10^3$, and $z=1$. We discuss the model selection and argue that even if the model under consideration fulfills both requirements, it is heavily constrained by observation. The prospects that the coincidence problem can be explained by the coupling of dark matter to dark energy are not clearly favored by the data.

16 pages, 7 figures and 3 tables. Modifications introduced to match published version

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Large-scale instability in interacting dark energy and dark matter fluids
• Dynamics of dark energy with a coupling to dark matter
• Dynamics of interacting dark energy
• Interacting models may be key to solve the cosmic coincidence problem
• Toward a solution of the coincidence problem
• Do WMAP data favor neutrino mass and a coupling between Cold Dark Matter and Dark Energy?
• Slow-Roll Suppression of Adiabatic Instabilities in Coupled Scalar Field-Dark Matter Models
• The Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect in Interacting Dark Energy Models
• Dark-Energy Dynamics Required to Solve the Cosmic Coincidence
• A quantitative criteria for the coincidence problem