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Quintessence and the cosmological constant

Michael Doran, Christof Wetterich

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/0205267

Abstract

Quintessence -- the energy density of a slowly evolving scalar field -- may constitute a dynamical form of the homogeneous dark energy in the universe. We review the basic idea in the light of the cosmological constant problem. Cosmological observations or a time variation of fundamental `constants' can distinguish quintessence from a cosmological constant.

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