Mass-varying neutrinos from a variable cosmological constant

We consider, in a completely model-independent way, the transfer of energy between the components of the dark energy sector consisting of the cosmological constant (CC) and of relic neutrinos. We show that such a cosmological setup may promote neutrinos to mass-varying particles, thus resembling a recently proposed scenario of Fardon, Nelson, and Weiner (FNW), but now without introducing any acceleron-like scalar fields. Although a formal similarity of the FNW scenario with the variable CC one can be easily established, one nevertheless finds different laws for neutrino mass variation in each scenario. We show that as long as the neutrino number density dilutes canonically, only a very slow variation of the neutrino mass is possible. For neutrino masses to vary significantly (as in the FNW scenario), a considerable deviation from the canonical dilution of the neutrino number density is also needed. We note that the present 'coincidence' between the dark energy density and the neutrino energy density can be obtained in our scenario even for static neutrino masses.