Dark energy, the colored anti-de Sitter vacuum, and LHC phenomenology

Abstract

We study the possibility that the current accelerated expansion of the universe is driven by the vacuum energy density of a colored scalar field which is responsible for a phase transition in which the gauge SU(3)_c symmetry breaks. We show that if we are stuck in a SU(3)_c - preserving false vacuum, then SU(3)_c symmetry breaking can be accommodated without violating any experimental QCD bounds or bounds from cosmological observations. Moreover, unless there is an unnatural fine-tuning beyond the usual cosmological constant fine-tuning, the true vacuum state of the universe is anti-de Sitter. The model can likely be tested at the LHC. A possible (though not necessary) consequence of the model is the existence of fractionally charged massive hadrons. The model can be embedded in supersymmetric theories where massive colored scalar fields appear naturally.