ar X iv : h ep - p h / 04 01 23 8 v 3 2 9 Ju l 2 00 4 Hybrid Dark Sector : Locked Quintessence and Dark Matter

We present a unified model of dark matter and dark energy. The dark matter field is a modulus corresponding to a flat direction of supersymmetry, which couples, in a hybrid type potential, with the dark energy field. The latter is a light scalar, whose direction is stabilized by non-renormalizable terms. This quintessence field is kept ‘locked’ on top of a false vacuum due to the coupling with the oscillating dark matter field. It is shown that the model can satisfy the observations when we consider low-scale gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. The necessary initial conditions are naturally attained by the action of supergravity corrections on the potential, in the period following the end of primordial inflation.