Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-19-2006
Publication Title
Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology
Department
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
We investigate the properties of a cosmological scenario which undergoes a gravitational phase transition at late times. In this scenario, the Universe evolves according to general relativity in the standard, hot big bang picture until a redshift z≲1. Nonperturbative phenomena associated with a minimally-coupled scalar field catalyzes a transition, whereby an order parameter consisting of curvature quantities such as R2, RabRab, RabcdRabcd acquires a constant expectation value. The ensuing cosmic acceleration appears driven by a dark-energy component with an equation-of-state w<−1. We evaluate the constraints from type 1a supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and other cosmological observations. We find that a range of models making a sharp transition to cosmic acceleration are consistent with observations.
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.73.023513
Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation
Caldwell, Robert R.; Komp, William; Parker, Leonard; and Vanzella, Daniel A. T., "Sudden Gravitational Transition" (2006). Dartmouth Scholarship. 1974.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/1974
