Sudden Future Singularities in Quintessence and Scalar-Tensor Quintessence Models

Understand

We demonstrate analytically and numerically the existence of geodesically complete singularities in quintessence and scalar tensor quintessence models with scalar field potential of the form $V(\phi)\sim \vert \phi\vert^n$ with $0<n<1$.

• In the case of quintessence, the singularity which occurs at $\phi=0$, involves divergence of the third time derivative of the scale factor (Generalized Sudden Future Singularity (GSFS)), and of the second derivative of the scalar field.
• In the case of scalar-tensor quintessence with the same potential and with a linear minimal coupling ($F(\phi)=1-\lambda \phi$), the singularity is stronger and involves divergence of the second derivative of the scale factor (Sudden Future Singularity (SFS)).
• We show that the scale factor close to the singularity is of the form $a(t)=a_s+b(t_{s}-t) + c(t_{s}-t)^2 +d(t_{s}-t)^q$ where $a_s,b,c,d$ are constants obtained from the dynamical equations and $t_s$ is the time of the singularity.