Natural quintessence with gauge coupling unification

Area of Science:

• Cosmology
• Particle Physics
• Theoretical Physics

Background:

• The accelerating expansion of the universe is a key cosmological observation.
• Quintessence models attempt to explain this acceleration using scalar fields.
• Understanding the fundamental dynamics driving cosmic acceleration is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate that a positive accelerating universe can arise from non-Abelian gauge group dynamics.
• To explore a quintessence interpretation for chiral field condensates.
• To investigate the possibility of coupling constant unification within this framework.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of chiral field condensates below a condensation scale (Lambda(c)).
• Investigating the potential of these condensates to act as quintessence.
• Examining the role of N(c), N(f), and dynamically generated gauge singlet bilinear fields (phi).

Main Results:

• A negative power potential for chiral field condensates below Lambda(c) is derived.
• This potential supports a quintessence interpretation of the fields.
• Unification of all coupling constants is shown to be possible.
• Phenomenology of phi as quintessence is acceptable without fine-tuning.

Conclusions:

• The dynamics of non-Abelian gauge groups provide a simple mechanism for a positive accelerating universe.
• This model offers a natural framework for quintessence.
• The coincidence problem is not solved but is comparable to existing challenges in the Standard Model.