Reinterpreting quintessential dark energy through averaged inhomogeneous cosmologies

TL;DR

This paper explores how averaging inhomogeneous cosmologies can produce effects similar to dark energy, modeling backreaction with a scalar field to explain late-time cosmic acceleration.

Contribution

It introduces a mean field approach to backreaction, linking inhomogeneous cosmologies to scalar field models of dark energy, providing a physical basis for quintessence.

Findings

Backreaction can be modeled as a scalar field in a potential.

Correspondence with scaling solutions demonstrates viability.

Provides a physical interpretation for phenomenological quintessence fields.

Abstract

Regionally averaged relativistic cosmologies have recently been considered as a possible explanation for the apparent late time acceleration of the Universe. This contribution reports on a mean field description of the backreaction in terms of a minimally coupled regionally homogeneous scalar field evolving in a potential, then giving a physical origin to the various phenomenological scalar fields generically called quintessence fields. As an example, the correspondence is then applied to scaling solutions.