Scalar field deformations of ΛCDM cosmology

This paper treats nonrelativistic matter and a scalar field phi with a monotonically decreasing potential minimally coupled to gravity in flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmology. The field equations are reformulated as a three-dimensional dynamical system on an extended compact state space, complemented with cosmographic diagrams. A dynamical systems analysis provides global dynamical results describing possible asymptotic behavior. It is shown that one should impose global and asymptotic bounds on lambda = -V-1 dV/d phi to obtain viable cosmological models that continuously deform Lambda CDM cosmology. In particular we introduce a regularized inverse power-law potential as a simple specific example.