Are we seeing the beginnings of Inflation?

Abstract

Phantom Cosmology provides an unique opportunity to "connect" the phantom driven (low en- ergy meV scale) dark energy phase to the (high energy GUT scale) inflationary era. This is possible because the energy density increases in phantom cosmology. We present a concrete model where the energy density, but not the scale factor, cycles through phases of standard radiation/matter domi- nation followed by dark energy/inflationary phases, and the pattern repeating itself. An interesting feature of the model is that once we include interactions between the "phantom fluid" and ordinary matter, the Big rip singularity is avoided with the phantom phase naturally giving way to a near exponential inflationary expansion.

17 pages, 1 figure