Quintessence: a mini-review

TL;DR

This paper reviews quintessence models for cosmic acceleration, examining their physical nature, interactions with matter, and the challenges posed by strong couplings, including potential solutions like the chameleon effect.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of quintessence models, analyzing their physical basis, matter interactions, and the viability of the chameleon mechanism as a solution.

Findings

Coupling between quintessence and matter is generally too strong for local gravity tests.

The chameleon effect can potentially suppress the coupling to meet experimental constraints.

The physical nature of the quintessence field is discussed within high energy physics frameworks.

Abstract

Models where the accelerated expansion of our Universe is caused by a quintessence scalar field are reviewed. In the framework of high energy physics, the physical nature of this field is discussed and its interaction with ordinary matter is studied and explicitly calculated. It is shown that this coupling is generically too strong to be compatible with local tests of gravity. A possible way out, the chameleon effect, is also briefly investigated.