What is needed of a tachyon if it is to be the dark energy?

Abstract

We study a dark energy scenario in the presence of a tachyon field φ with potential V (φ) and a barotropic perfect fluid. The cosmological dynamics crucially depends on the asymptotic behavior of the quantity λ = −MpVφ/V 3/2 . If λ is a constant, which corresponds to an inverse square potential V (φ) ∝ φ−2 , there exists one stable critical point that gives an acceleration of the universe at late times. When λ → 0 asymptotically, we can have a viable dark energy scenario in which the system approaches an “instantaneous” critical point that dynamically changes with λ. If |λ| approaches infinity asymptotically, the universe does not exhibit an acceleration at late times. In this case, however, we find an interesting possibility that a transient acceleration occurs in a regime where |λ| is smaller than of order unity.