Quintom cosmologies with arbitrary potentials

Abstract

In this paper we investigate quintom cosmologies with arbitrary potentials from the dynamical systems perspective. The dynamical systems analysis is complete in the sense that it includes the asymptotic regime where both scalar fields diverge, which proves to be particularly relevant in connection with the existence of tracking phases. The results of the present study indicate that the existence of phantom attractors is not generic: for quintom models there may exist either de Sitter attractors associated with the saddle points of the potential, or tracking attractors in the asymptotic regime where the scalar fields diverge.