Pith. sign in

A classification of scalar field potentials with cosmological scaling solutions

1 Pith paper cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

1 Pith paper citing it
abstract

An attractive method of obtaining an effective cosmological constant at the present epoch is through the potential energy of a scalar field. Considering models with a perfect fluid and a scalar field, we classify all potentials for which the scalar field energy density scales as a power-law of the scale factor when the perfect fluid density dominates. There are three possibilities. The first two are well known; the much-investigated exponential potentials have the scalar field mimicking the evolution of the perfect fluid, while for negative power-laws, introduced by Ratra and Peebles, the scalar field density grows relative to that of the fluid. The third possibility is a new one, where the potential is a positive power-law and the scalar field energy density decays relative to the perfect fluid. We provide a complete analysis of exact solutions and their stability properties, and investigate a range of possible cosmological applications.

citation-role summary

background 1

citation-polarity summary

fields

hep-ph 1

years

2025 1

verdicts

CONDITIONAL 1

roles

background 1

polarities

unclear 1

representative citing papers

citing papers explorer

Showing 1 of 1 citing paper.

  • Bias with a Timer: Axion Domain Wall Decay and Dark Matter hep-ph · 2025-07-16 · conditional · none · ref 26 · internal anchor

    A light spectator field first creates and later disables an extra axion potential, letting axion domain walls decay and matching dark matter at larger decay constants.