Late decaying dark matter, bulk viscosity, and the cosmic acceleration

Abstract

We discuss a cosmology in which cold dark matter begins to decay into relativistic particles at a recent epoch ($zl1$). We show that the large entropy production and associated bulk viscosity from such decays leads to an accelerating cosmology as required by observations. We investigate the effects of decaying cold dark matter in a $\ensuremath{\Lambda}=0$, flat, initially matter dominated cosmology. We show that this model satisfies the cosmological constraint from the redshift-distance relation for type Ia supernovae. The age in such models is also consistent with the constraints from the oldest stars and globular clusters. Possible candidates for this late decaying dark matter are suggested along with additional observational tests of this cosmological paradigm.