Dark energy from a renormalization group flow

TL;DR

This paper proposes that certain hidden sector quantum field theories, which break conformal invariance, can naturally produce dark energy behavior consistent with observations, including a small cosmological constant and matter tracking.

Contribution

It introduces a class of gravitationally-coupled hidden sectors with controlled conformal symmetry breaking as a source of dark energy, linking high-energy theories to cosmological phenomena.

Findings

Hidden sectors exhibit dark energy-like behavior.

Energy density tracks matter at early times.

Effective dark energy mimics a small cosmological constant.

Abstract

We present evidence that a special class of gravitationally-coupled hidden sectors, in which conformal invariance is dynamically broken in a controlled way, exhibit the properties of dark energy. Such quantum field theories may appear while embedding the Standard Model in a more fundamental high energy theory. At late times, an effective dark energy field behaves similarly to an exponentially small cosmological constant while at early times its energy density partly tracks that of matter.