Constraints on the generalized chaplygin gas from supernovae observations

We explore the implications of type Ia supernovae (SNIa) observations on flat cosmological models whose matter content is an exotic fluid with equation of state, p = -M4((alpha+1))rho(alpha). In this scenario, a single fluid component may drive the Universe from a nonrelativistic matter dominated phase to an accelerated expansion phase behaving, first, like dark matter and in a more recent epoch as dark energy. We show that these models are consistent with current SNIa data for a rather broad range of parameters. However, future SNIa experiments will place stringent constraints on these models, and could safely rule out the special case of a Chaplygin gas (alpha = 1) if the Universe is dominated by a true cosmological constant. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.