Interacting dark matter and cosmic acceleration

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a small interaction between dark matter scalar fields can replicate the effects of dark energy, potentially replacing the need for a cosmological constant in explaining cosmic acceleration.

Contribution

It introduces a model where dark matter components interact explicitly, providing an alternative explanation for cosmic acceleration without exotic dark energy.

Findings

Small couplings suffice to mimic cosmological constant effects

Interaction can address $ ext{Λ}$CDM problems

Model aligns with observational data

Abstract

We study the effect of an explicit interaction between two scalar fields components describing dark matter in the context of a recent proposal framework for interaction. We find that, even assuming a very small coupling, it is sufficient to explain the observational effects of a cosmological constant, and also overcome the problems of the $\Lambda$CDM model without assuming an exotic dark energy.