Phantom dark energy with varying-mass dark matter particles: acceleration and cosmic coincidence problem

Abstract

We investigate several varying-mass dark-matter particle models in the framework of phantom cosmology. We examine whether there exist late-time cosmological solutions, corresponding to an accelerating universe and possessing dark energy and dark matter densities of the same order. Imposing exponential or power-law potentials and exponential or power-law mass dependence, we conclude that the coincidence problem cannot be solved or even alleviated. Thus, if dark energy is attributed to the phantom paradigm, varying-mass dark matter models cannot fulfill the basic requirement that led to their construction.