A coupled vacuum energy model producing endless alternated phases of accelerated and decelerated expansion

TL;DR

This paper proposes a cosmological model with coupled vacuum energy and matter/radiation that produces endless alternating phases of acceleration and deceleration, unifying inflation and current acceleration.

Contribution

It introduces a simple coupled vacuum energy model that satisfies observational constraints and describes a universe with cyclic phases of acceleration and deceleration.

Findings

Model reproduces observed $ m extit{ extbf{ extLambda} CDM}$ expansion.

Universe exhibits endless alternating accelerated and decelerated phases.

Unifies inflation with current acceleration through coupling functions.

Abstract

We consider a flat Universe filled with a vacuum energy coupled to matter and radiation by respectively positive coupling functions $Q_m$ and $Q_r$. We require that these functions be such as Universe exits from inflation to go to a radiation dominated epoch and allow to reproduce the observed $\Lambda CDM$ expansion after this last epoch. These requirements lead to some necessary constraints on the coupling functions. We then look at one of the simplest forms of $Q_m$ and $Q_r$ able to satisfy them. The cosmological model thus defined describes a Universe with an initial singularity and endless alternated periods of accelerated and decelerated expansion (one of them being our $\Lambda CDM$ Universe) unifying inflation and present time expansion acceleration.