Escaping the Big Rip?

Abstract

We discuss dark energy models which might describe effectively the actual acceleration of the universe. More precisely, for a 4-dimensional Friedmann-Lema\^{\i}tre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) universe we consider two situations: First of them, we model dark energy by phantom energy described by a perfect fluid satisfying the equation of state $P=(\beta-1)\rho$ (with $\beta<0$ and constant). In this case the universe reaches a ``Big Rip'' independently of the spatial geometry of the FLRW universe. In the second situation, the dark energy is described by a phantom (generalized) Chaplygin gas which violates the dominant energy condition. Contrary to the previous case, for this material content a FLRW universe would never reach a ``big rip'' singularity (indeed, the geometry is asymptotically de Sitter). We also show how this dark energy model can be described in terms of scalar fields, corresponding to a minimally coupled scalar field, a Born-Infeld scalar field and a generalized Born-Infeld scalar field. Finally, we introduce a phenomenologically viable model where dark energy is described by a phantom generalized Chaplygin gas.