Strongly coupled quintessence

Abstract

We present a family of consistent quantum field theories of monodromy quintessence in strong coupling, which can serve as benchmarks in modeling dark energy different from the cosmological constant. These theories have discrete gauge symmetries that can protect them from quantum field theory and quantum gravity corrections, both perturbative and nonperturbative. The strong coupling effects, at scales mm-1, flatten the potential and activate operators with higher powers of derivatives. The predicted equation of state is close to, but not exactly equal to,-1. Thus testing the model may be within reach of the (near) future programs to explore the nature of dark energy.