Dark Energy and QCD Ghost

Abstract

It has been suggested that the dark energy that explains the observed accelerating expansion of the universe may arise due to the contribution to the vacuum energy of the QCD ghost in a time-dependent background. The argument uses a four-dimensional simplified model. In this paper, we put the discussion in more realistic model keeping all components of the QCD vector ghost and show that indeed QCD ghost produces dark energy proportional to the Hubble parameter $HΛ_{QCD}^3$ ($Λ_{QCD}$ is the QCD mass scale) which has the right magnitude $\sim (3\times 10^{-3}$ eV)$^4$.

8 pages, v2: some wording modified, clarifying comments on the contribution added, refs. added, v3:minor corrections to match with the published version