Gaugessence: a dark energy model with early time radiation-like equation of state

In this work, we study a new quintessence model associated with non-Abelian gauge fields, minimally coupled to Einstein gravity. This gauge theory has been recently introduced and studied as an inflationary model, called gauge-flation. Here, however, we are interested in the late time cosmology of the model in the presence of matter and radiation to explain the present time accelerating Universe. During the radiation and matter eras, the gauge field tracks radiation and basically acts like a dark radiation sector. As we approach lower redshifts, the dark component takes the form of a dark energy source which eventually becomes the dominate part of the energy budget of the Universe. Due to the tracking feature of our model, solutions with different initial values are attracted to a common trajectory. The existence of early dark radiation is a robust prediction of our model which contributes to the effective number of relativistic species, N-eff and has its own interesting observational features.