Dynamical dark energy with a constant vacuum energy density

We present a holographic dark-energy model in which the Newton constant G(N) scales in such a way as to render the vacuum energy density a true constant. Nevertheless, the model acts as a dynamical dark-energy model since the scaling of GN goes at the expense of deviation of concentration of dark-matter particles from its canonical form and/or of promotion of their mass to a time-dependent quantity, thereby making the effective equation of state (EOS) variable and different from -1 at the present epoch. Thus the model has a potential to naturally underpin Dirac's suggestion for explaining the large-number hypothesis, which demands a dynamical GN along with the creation of matter in the universe. We show that with the aid of observational bounds on the variation of the gravitational coupling, the effective-field theory IR cutoff can be strongly restricted, being always closer to the future event horizon than to the Hubble distance. As for the observational side, the effective EOS restricted by observation can be made arbitrary close to -1, and therefore the present model can be considered as a "minimal" dynamical dark-energy scenario. In addition, for nonzero but small curvature (vertical bar Omega(k0)vertical bar less than or similar to 0.003), the model easily accommodates a transition across the phantom line for redshifts z less than or similar to 0.2, as mildly favored by the data. A thermodynamic aspect of the scenario is also discussed. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.