Noncanonical Domain Wall as a Unified Model of Dark Energy and Dark Matter: I. Cosmic Dynamics

Abstract: We propose noncanonical domain walls as a new dark energy model inspired by grand unified theories (GUTs). We investigate the cosmic dynamics and discover that the domain walls act as either dark energy or dark matter at different times, depending on the velocity v in the observer's comoving frame. We find a single stable solution to the dynamics, i.e., only freezing (v = 0) noncanonical domain walls can enter the phantom zone without having to experience ghost field instability. This means that the solution has an equation of state (EoS) w_dw < -1 without having to possess negative kinetic energy. These domain walls give rise to a late-time cosmic acceleration starting from z = 0.8, resulting in w_dw = -1.5 and w_eff = -1.03 today. We learn that the EoS of the noncanonical domain walls is independent of the potential form. We also investigate the perturbation dynamics following the model. Our simulations show that compared to LCDM, the amplitude of the dark matter power spectrum in the noncanonical domain wall model is lower, while the CMB power spectrum is shifted slighly to lower l multipoles. The proposed model gives a smaller sigma8 compared to that of LCDM.