Coupled quintessence and the coincidence problem

Abstract

We consider a model of interacting cosmological constant/quintessence, where dark matter and dark energy behave as, respectively, two coexisting phases of a fluid, a thermally excited Bose component and a condensate, respectively. In a simple phenomenological model for the dark components interaction we find that their energy density evolution is strongly coupled during the universe evolution. This feature provides a possible way out for the coincidence problem affecting many quintessence models.

15 pages, 11 figures