Dynamical dark energy or variable cosmological parameters?

Abstract

One of the main aims in the next generation of precision cosmology experiments will be an accurate determination of the equation of state (EOS) for the dark energy (DE). If the latter is dynamical, the resulting barotropic index ωshould exhibit a non-trivial evolution with the redshift. Usually this is interpreted as a sign that the mechanism responsible for the DE is related to some dynamical scalar field, and in some cases this field may behave non-canonically (phantom field). Present observations seem to favor an evolving DE with a potential phantom phase near our time. In the literature there is a plethora of dynamical models trying to describe this behavior. Here we show that the simplest option, namely a model with a variable cosmological term, Λ=Λ(t), leads in general to a non-trivial effective EOS, with index ω_e, which may naturally account for these data features. We prove that in this case there is always a ``crossing'' of the ω_e=-1 barrier near our time. We also show how this effect is modulated (or even completely controled) by a variable Newton's constant G=G(t).