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Dark Energy: Relating the Evolutions of the Universe from the Past to the Future

Article in Chinese Physics Letters · September 2006

DOI: 10.1088/0256-307X/23/9/075 · Source: arXiv

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 Dark Energy: relating the evolution of the universe from the past to the future

Zhuo-Yi Huang, Bin Wang∗

Department of Physics, Fudan University,
Shanghai 200433, People’s Republic of China

Rong-Gen Cai†
arXiv:astro-ph/0511745v1 26 Nov 2005

Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,

P.O. Box 2735, Beijing 100080, China

Ru-Keng Su‡
China Center of Advanced Science and Technology (World Laboratory),
P.B.Box 8730, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China
Department of Physics, Fudan University,
Shanghai 200433, People’s Republic of China

Abstract
Using the evolution history of the universe, one can make constraint on the parameter space of dynamic
dark energy models. We discuss two different parameterized dark energy models. Our results further restrict
the combined constraints obtained from supernova and WMAP observations. From the allowed parameter
space, it is found that our universe will experience an eternal acceleration. We also estimate the bound on
the physically relevant regions both in the re-inflationary and inflationary phases.

PACS numbers: 98.80.Cq; 98.80.-k

∗
Electronic address: [email protected]
†
Electronic address: [email protected]
‡
Electronic address: [email protected]

1
 Numerous and complementary cosmological observations made in the last decade suggest that
the expansion of our universe is now accelerating (re-inflation) [1]. This may indicate that our
universe contains dark energy with equation of state wde < − 31 , making up as much as 70% of the
critical energy density. The usual suspects for dark energy are cosmological constant with constant
equation of state wde = −1 or exotic fields with time dependent equation of state [2].
In addition to telling us contents of our universe, acceleration of the cosmic expansion has also
profound implications for dynamics and physics on both very high energy scale in the past and low
energy scale in the future. Using the characteristic length scale of expansion, the Hubble radius
H −1 , together with the energy density in terms of the expansion factor, we can distinguish our
universe into three different phases starting from inflationary expansion (inflation), following by
radiation and matter dominated phase in standard big bang cosmology and finally entering the
re-inflationary era governed by the dark energy. For an eternally accelerating third phase driven
by the dark energy, the event horizon surrounding any observer will limit the number of e-folds of
the re-inflation that will be observable in our universe. More interestingly, it was found that when
a universe is at the moment of the transition to the eternally re-inflationary phase, it contains
the most information about the first phase inflationary perturbations. This could impose a bound
on the physically relevant duration of the first phase inflation. Considering the dark energy as
the cosmological constant, the concept of investigating the dynamic ranges during inflationary and
re-inflationary phases has been discussed in [3, 4]. Besides, the phenomenology for the expansion
dynamics in the second phase of the universe evolution influenced by the dark energy has also
been examined in [5]. It was argued that the dark energy serves as a thread of three phases of the
evolution of our universe, relating the past to the future.
In this paper, we are going to generalize previous studies and examine the dynamical impli-
cations on the past and future expansion behaviors of our universe due to the dark energy with
time-dependent equation of state. The evolving dark energy is an alternative model to the cosmo-
logical constant, which affects the features of the temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave
background radiation and influences a lot on the small l CMB spectrum [6, 7]. In addition to its
relevance to the early universe evolution, we will show that the behavior of the variation of equa-
tion of state for dark energy determines the fate of our universe. Considering the evolution of
energy density with the expansion of the universe, we will present that the history of the universe
expansion on the contrary also puts constraints on any possible variation of equation of state for
dark energy. The expansion of the universe and the evolution of dark energy are closely co-related.

2
 The expansion of the background universe is described by

H 2 (a) = H02 Ω0r a−4 + Ω0m a−3 + Ω0d f (a) ,

 
(1)
h R i
1 1+wde (a′ )
where f (a) = exp 3 a a′ da′ , Ωr , Ωm are dimensionless radiation and matter densities and
Ωd is the dark energy density. This Friedmann equation can be used to give pictures of the second
and third phases of the evolution of the universe. For the first inflationary phase, we simply assume
that the Hubble parameter remains a constant HI . And we further assume that this phase finished
with a perfectly efficient reheating so that the radiation era started just at the end of the first
phase with the scale factor aend .
The effective total equation of state of the universe can be calculated by [5, 8]

1 d ln(H 2 /H02 )
wtot (a) = −1 − ,
3 d ln a
Ω0 a−4 + 3Ω0d f (a)wde (a)
=  0r −4 . (2)
3 Ωr a + Ω0m a−3 + Ω0d f (a)

In the radiation era, wtot = 13 . At present, since we are already in the re-inflationary era according
to observations, wtot < − 13 . The re-inflation started at z∗ = 0.46 ± 0.13 at 1σ [13], which requires
q = − Ha dH 1
da − 1 crossing 0 and puts wtot = − 3 at a∗ =
1
1+z∗ . All these historical moments
of the universe expansion could give constraints on the dark energy evolution. We will show
that combining the constraints from the expansion history with supernova type Ia and WMAP
observations, we can severely restrict possible parameter space in the time-dependent dark energy
models.
In the far future, it is easy to see from Eq. (2) that wtot → wde . Thus the asymptotic behavior
of the evolving dark energy at large scale will determine the fate of the evolution of our universe.
The re-inflationary phase could keep on forever or give way to the decelerated expansion provided
that at large scale the time-dependent equation of state approximates to wde < − 31 or wde > − 13
respectively.
If the universe ends with a decelerated expansion, a patient observer could get as much infor-
mation from CMB spectrum of our universe as he/she observes. However, while the re-inflationary
phase lasts forever, the observer will always be surrounded by a cosmological event horizon. Space-
times with event horizons contain Hawking particles. As the universe acceleratingly expands, the
wavelength of the CMB photons will be redshifted rapidly and CMB temperature will drop below
the Hawking temperature. After this the CMB information will be completely immersed in the
cosmological Hawking radiation. We illustrated this idea in Fig 1. Thus if the universe starts to

3
accelerate forever in the third phase, there will be limited region of the universe accessible to ob-
servers. For the eternally accelerating phase driven by the cosmological constant, the investigation
on the cutoff scale in the observable region was carried out in [3, 4]. Employing the combined
constraints on the equation of state of dark energy, we will estimate the finite physical relevant
region in the third phase for dynamic dark energy models.

-10

-20
TCMB T H1

-30
a
lg T -40 b T H2

-50 c
T H3

-60

-70
0 10 20 30 40
lg a

Figure 1: Evolution of the temperature of the CMB TCMB and Hawking particles TH . Points a, b and c
represent the time that CMB information is immersed in Hawking radiation for wde < −1, wde = −1 and
wde > −1 respectively .

Similar bounds on the physically relevant duration of the first phase inflation also exist. It
is known that the inflationary perturbations could act as seeds of structure formation after they
re-enter the Hubble horizon. The wavelength of the quantum fluctuations stretches as λ ∼ a(t),
while after the first phase, the Hubble horizon of the universe grows linearly in time, which is
much faster than the stretch of the wavelength scale of the fluctuations. Hence normally the
perturbations will reenter the Hubble radius sooner or later after their eviction from it if there
was no re-inflation. If the universe enters the third phase with forever acceleration, the Hubble

4
radius will be flattered (or shrunk, depending on the equation of state for dark energy), grows even
slower than the perturbation wavelength. Some of the perturbations will never reenter the Hubble
horizon. The later the fluctuations reenter the Hubble radius, the earlier they exit from the Hubble
horizon during the first phase. The last moment for the fluctuations generated during inflation
to reenter the Hubble horizon as the universe enters the third phase is exactly the moment when
the re-inflation starts. Perturbations crossing the Hubble horizon much earlier during inflation will
never reenter the Hubble horizon in the re-inflation phase. Employing the criterion that we need
the perturbation to reenter the Hubble horizon, we can get the astrophysical relevant bound on
the length scale produced during the inflation. Clear picture of this idea is shown in Fig 2 [3].
Considering the third phase of the universe evolution being driven by the dynamic dark energy,
we will find that the starting moment of the re-inflation will be shifted from that of assuming the
third phase being de-Sitter phase [3]. The shift of the starting point of the re-inflation will change
the bound on the duration of inflation obtained in [3]. This will be discussed in some detail for
different dynamical dark energy models below.
In our following discussion, we will choose two time-dependent dark energy models with different
parametrizations:

I
wde (a) = w0 + w1 (1 − a), (3)
II
wde (a) = w0 + w1 (1 − a)a. (4)

These two models have been extensively discussed in various papers, for example, see [6, 9, 10,
11, 12]. For the first model, characteristic moments of the universe evolution require that during
1
the radiation era wtot = 3 and at the present time wtot < − 31 due to the observed accelerated
expansion, which gives constraints: w1 ≤ 0.34 − w0 and w0 < −0.48. These constraints shrink the
allowed parameter space of w0 − w1 obtained from supernova observation. Using the observational
result that the re-inflation started at z∗ = 0.46 ± 0.13[13], which is the point where the deceleration
parameter q = − Ha dH
da − 1 crossing 0, we can have further constraints on the w0 − w1 parameter

space for this dynamic dark energy model. The combined constraints from the evolution history
and the supernova and WMAP observations are shown in the white region in Fig 3. The result
shows that adding the evolution history constraint, the variation of the equation of state of dark
energy can be severely restricted.
In the far future, we know that wtot → wde from Eq. (2). The fate of the universe is determined
by the value of w1 . For w1 < 0, the re-inflationary expansion of the universe will give way to
deceleration at very late time. However, if w1 > 0, wtot will be a very negative value at large scale,

5
 60
H3

d
40 H2

lg H
H1
20 b

Phase I Phase II Phase III

c a e

-60 -40 -20 0 20 40

lg a

Figure 2: The evolution of our universe experiences three phases, namely inflation (line ce), radiation and
matter domination (line ed) and re-inflation. Point a and b show the time perturbations generated during
inflation exit and re-enter the Hubble radius. The perturbations which leave Hubble radius earlier than c
will never re-enter due to the acceleration in the third phase. During re-inflation, H1 , H2 and H3 represent
the evolution of Hubble radius in the future with wde < −1, wde = −1 and wde > −1 respectively. The
beginning moments of reacceleration are different due to the variations in the equation of state for dark
energy.

thus the re-inflation of the universe will last forever. The combined constraints shown in Fig 3 tell us
that the allowed w1 is indeed positive leading to the eternal re-inflation of the universe in the third
phase of its evolution. Using the concept explained above, the bound on the region of the universe
could be accessible to observers in the future is within the range with e-folds Nre−inf ∈ [3.68, 7.91]
by employing the allowed parameter space in Fig 3.
On the other hand, by fixing the starting moment of the re-inflation within the constraint
parameter space of the evolving dark energy and using the criterion that we need the fluctuations
to reenter the Hubble radius, the natural bound on the duration of the inflation with the number

6
 2

w1 0

-1

-2
-1.3 -1.2 -1.1 -1 -0.9 -0.8 -0.7
w0

Figure 3: The purple region is excluded by supernova observations and the green part is ruled out by the
1
WMAP observations [3]. The shaded region violets wtot = 3 at radiation era. The gray part is dropped by
requiring the transition to the re-inflation phase happened at z∗ = 0.46 ± 0.13.

of e-folds is found to be Ninf ∈ [55.98, 56.02].

These studies can be extended to the second parametrization of the dynamic dark energy model.
1
The universe evolution history requires (a) at the radiation era wtot = 3, (b) the deceleration
parameter crosses 0 at a∗ , (c) at present wtot < − 31 . Especially the requirement (b) can be used
to further restrict the constraints got by the supernova and WMAP observations. The combined
constraint is shown in the white region in Fig 4 .
Similar to the first model, the sign of w1 determines the fate of the universe. For w1 < 0,
the present re-inflation era will be followed by a deceleration expansion. However for w1 > 0, the
present accelerated expansion will go on forever. From the combined constraint shown in Fig 4 ,
we learn that our universe will experience an eternal acceleration. The bound on the number of
e-folds of the future universe, which is observable, is found within the range Nre−inf ∈ [2.29, 2.87].
In addition, using the criterion discussed above, the natural cutoff length scale in the inflation is
estimated to be within the number of e-folds Ninf ∈ [55.95, 56.01]. This number is quite near to
that in the first model.

7
 2

w1 0

-1

-2
-1.3 -1.2 -1.1 -1 -0.9 -0.8 -0.7
w0

Figure 4: Similarly as explained in Fig 3, the white region left is the combined constraints resulting from
both the history of the universe expansion and supernova and WMAP observations.

In summary, we investigated the close relation between the expansion history of the universe
and the evolution of the dynamic dark energy. We found that some specific historical moments of
the universe evolution can be used to constrain the parameter space of the evolving dark energy
models, which further refines the combined constraints from supernova and WMAP observations.
The behavior of the evolving dark energy can determine the fate of the universe. For two dynamic
dark energy models with different parametrizations, we found that the universe will experience
an eternal acceleration. In addition, the natural cutoff length scales in both the inflation and
re-inflation phases were obtained, which make regions of physical relevance in both of these two
phases finite.

8
 Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by NNSF of China, Ministry of Education of China and
Shanghai Education Commission.

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