Will the tachyonic Universe survive the Big Brake?

Understand

We investigate a Friedmann universe filled with a tachyon scalar field, which behaves as dustlike matter in the past, while it is able to accelerate the expansion rate of the universe at late times.

• The comparison with type Ia supernovae (SNIa) data allows for evolutions driving the universe into a Big Brake.
• Some of the evolutions leading to a Big Brake exhibit a large variation of the equation of state parameter at low redshifts which is potentially observable with future data though hardly detectable with present SNIa data.
• The soft Big Brake singularity occurs at finite values of the scale factor, vanishing energy density and Hubble parameter, but diverging deceleration and infinite pressure.