Faced by recent evidence for a flat universe dominated by dark energy, cosmologists grapple with deep cosmic enigmas such as the cosmological constant problem, extreme fine-tuning and the cosmic coincidence problem. The extent to which we observe the dimming of distant supernovae suggests that the cosmic acceleration is as least as severe as in cosmological constant models. Extrapolating this to our cosmic future implies terrifying visions of either a cold and empty universe or an explosive demise in a “Big Rip.” We construct a class of dynamical scalar field models of dark energy and dark matter. Within this class we can explain why supernovae imply a cosmic equation of state $w\lesssim -1$, address fine-tuning issues, protect the universe from premature acceleration and predict a constant fraction of dark energy to dark matter in the future (thus solving the coincidence problem), satisfy the dominant energy condition, and ensure that gravitationally bound objects remain so forever (avoid a Big Rip). This is achieved with a string theory inspired Lagrangian containing standard kinetic terms, exponential potentials and couplings, and parameters of order unity.

• Received 24 March 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.74.023519