The unification of inflation and late-time acceleration in the frame of $k$-essence

TL;DR

This paper constructs stable $k$-essence models that unify early universe inflation and late-time acceleration using higher derivative terms, relaxing initial conditions and avoiding tachyonic instabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a $k$-essence framework with higher derivatives that stabilizes the unification of inflation and late acceleration, overcoming limitations of canonical scalar models.

Findings

Models are stable due to higher derivative terms.

Tachyonic instabilities are eliminated.

Reheating mechanism via quantum effects is proposed.

Abstract

By using the formulation of the reconstruction, we explicitly construct models of $k$-essence, which unify the inflation in the early universe and the late accelerating expansion of the present universe by a single scalar field. Due to the higher derivative terms, the solution describing the unification can be stable in the space of solutions, which makes the restriction for the initial condition relaxed. The higher derivative terms also eliminate tachyon. Therefore we can construct a model describing the time development, which cannot be realized by a usual inflaton or quintessence models of the canonical scalar field due to the instability or the existence of tachyon. We also propose a mechanism of the reheating by the quantum effects coming from the variation of the energy density of the scalar field.