Brane cosmology with a van der Waals equation of state (Q1878372)

According to the cosmological observations one can distinguish three distinct periods for the universe that are related to its acceleration field. The first period refers to an accelerated epoch dominated by a scalar field where a rapid expansion of the universe characterizes its inflationary phase. The next one is related to a decelerated phase dominated by matter fields. This period is followed by a return into an accelerated epoch dominated by a cosmological constant or dark energy. The present work investigates the evolution of the universe confined to a 3-brane embedded into 5-dimensional space-time in order to investigate the three distinct periods just described. The work is an elaboration on the earlier work by Randall and Sundrum, in which the universe is confined to a hypersurface -- called brane -- embedded into 5-dimensional space-time made in such a way that there is no matter flow along the fifth dimension. The paper does not provide any explanations as to why the space-time should be 5-dimensional or why one has to choose a 3-brane instead of 4- or 2-brane, etc. The actual calcuations are simple variations on the theme of the famous Friedmann cosmological evolutionary model in which the classical van der Waals equation of state is used as an input.