Initial conditions for quintessence after inflation

Abstract

We consider the behaviour of a quintessence field during an inflationary epoch, in order to learn how inflation influences the likely initial conditions for quintessence. We use the stochastic inflation formalism to study quantum fluctuations induced in the quintessence field during the early stages of inflation, and conclude that these drive its mean to large values (> 0.1 m_{Planck}). Consequently we find that tracker behaviour typically starts at low redshift, long after nucleosynthesis and most likely also after decoupling.