Quintessential Enhancement of Dark Matter Abundance

The presence of a dynamical scalar field in the early universe could significantly affect the `freeze-out' time of particle species. In particular, it was recently shown that an enhancement of the relic abundance of neutralinos can be produced in this way. We examine under which conditions this primordial scalar field could be identified with the Quintessence scalar and find, through concrete examples, that modifications to the standard paradigm are necessary. We discuss two possible cases: the presence of more scalars and the switching on of an interaction.