Dark Energy and the Refined de Sitter Conjecture
  We revisit the phenomenology of quintessence models in light of the recently
refined version of the de Sitter Swampland conjecture, which includes the
possibility of unstable de Sitter critical points. We show that models of
quintessence can evade previously derived lower bounds on $(1+w)$, albeit with
very finely-tuned initial conditions. In the absence of such tuning or other
rolling quintessence fields, a field with mass close to Hubble is required,
which has a generic prediction for $(1+w)$. Slow-roll single field inflation
models remain in tension. Other phenomenological constraints arising from the
coupling of the quintessence field with the Higgs or the QCD axion are
significantly relaxed.
