Acceleration of the Universe in Matter Dominant Era by Conformal Symmetry Breaking

We introduce a scenario in which the breakdown of conformal symmetry is responsible for the acceleration of universe in the matter dominant era. In this regard, we consider a self interacting scalar field non-minimally coupled to the Ricci scalar and the trace of energy-momentum tensor. For a traceless energy-momentum tensor in radiation dominant era, the coupling to matter vanishes and we are left with a conformal invariant gravitational action of Deser, where the universe may experience a decelerating phase in agreement with observations. In matter dominant era, the coupling to matter no longer vanishes, the conformal symmetry is broken down, and the matter inevitably becomes pressureless. The corresponding field equations are obtained and it is shown that the universe may have an accelerating phase in this era, provided that the value of self interaction coupling constant satisfies an specific lower bound. Moreover, we provide a reasonable solution to the coincidence problem.