The dynamical behavior of homogeneous scalar-field spacetimes with general self-interaction potentials

The dynamics of homogeneous Robertson–Walker cosmological models with a self-interacting scalar field source is examined here in full generality, requiring only the scalar field potential to be bounded from below and divergent when the field diverges. In this way we are able to give a unified treatment of all the already studied cases—such as positive potentials which exhibit asymptotically polynomial or exponential behaviors—together with its extension to a much wider set of physically sensible potentials. Since the set includes potentials with negative inferior bound, we are able to give, in particular, the analysis of the asymptotically anti De Sitter states for such cosmologies.