Alternative mechanism of avoiding the big rip or little rip for a scalar phantom field

Abstract

Depending on the choice of its potential, the scalar phantom field ϕ (the equation of state parameter w<−1) leads to various catastrophic fates of the universe including big rip, little rip and other future singularity. For example, big rip results from the evolution of the phantom field with an exponential potential and little rip stems from a quadratic potential in general relativity (GR). By choosing the same potential as in GR, we suggest a new mechanism to avoid these unexpected fates (big and little rip) in the inverse-R gravity. As a pedagogical illustration, we give an exact solution where phantom field leads to a power-law evolution of the scale factor in an exponential type potential. We also find the sufficient condition for a universe in which the equation of state parameter crosses w=−1 divide. The phantom field with different potentials, including quadratic, cubic, quantic, exponential and logarithmic potentials are studied via numerical calculation in the inverse-R gravity with R2 correction. The singularity is avoidable under all these potentials. Hence, we conclude that the avoidance of big or little rip is hardly dependent on special potential.