On the necessity of phantom fields for solving the horizon problem in scalar cosmologies

Abstract: We discuss the particle horizon problem in the framework of spatially homogeneous and isotropic scalar cosmologies. To this purpose we consider a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime with possibly non-zero spatial sectional curvature (and arbitrary dimension), and assume that the content of the universe is a family of perfect fluids, plus a scalar field that can be a quintessence or a phantom (depending on the sign of the kinetic part in its action functional). We show that the occurrence of a particle horizon is unavoidable if the field is a quintessence, the spatial curvature is non-positive and the usual energy conditions are fulfilled by the perfect fluids. As a partial converse, we present three solvable models where a phantom is present in addition to a perfect fluid, and no particle horizon~appears.