Generalized Chaplygin gas as geometrical dark energy

The generalized Chaplygin gas provides an interesting candidate for the present accelerated expansion of the universe. We explore a geometrical explanation for the generalized Chaplygin gas within the context of brane world theories where matter fields are confined to the brane by means of the action of a confining potential. We obtain the modified Friedmann equations, deceleration parameter and age of the universe in this scenario and show that they are consistent with the present observational data.