Cosmological Condensation of Scalar Fields -- Making a dark energy

TL;DR

This paper explores how quantum scalar fields can form condensates in the early universe, potentially explaining dark energy through quantum effects and self-interactions that induce tracking behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum corrections and self-interactions of scalar fields can lead to condensate formation and tracking behavior relevant for dark energy.

Findings

Decay of heavy particles can produce condensates during radiation domination.

Quantum corrections induce inverse power-law terms in the effective action.

Self-interactions are crucial for condensate stability during matter domination.

Abstract

Our Universe is ruled by quantum mechanics and its extension Quantum Field Theory (QFT). However, the explanations for a number of cosmological phenomena such as inflation, dark energy, symmetry breakings, and phase transitions need the presence of classical scalar fields. Although the process of condensation of scalar fields in the lab is fairly well understood, the extension of results to a cosmological context is not trivial. Here we investigate the formation of a condensate - a classical scalar field - after reheating of the Universe. We assume a light quantum scalar field produced by the decay of a heavy particle, which for simplicity is assumed to be another scalar. We show that during radiation domination epoch under certain conditions, the decay of the heavy particle alone is sufficient for the production of a condensate. This process is very similar to preheating - the exponential particle production at the end of inflation. During matter domination epoch when the expansion of the Universe is faster, the decay alone can not keep the growing trend of the field and the amplitude of the condensate decreases rapidly, unless there is a self interaction. This issue is particularly important for dark energy. We show that quantum corrections of the self-interaction play a crucial role in this process. Notably, they induce an effective action which includes inverse power-law terms, and therefore can lead to a tracking behaviour even when the classical self-interaction is a simple power-law of order 3 or 4. This removes the necessity of having nonrenormalisable terms in the Lagrangian. If dark energy is the condensate of a quantum scalar field, these results show that its presence is deeply related to the action of quantum physics at largest observable scales.