  We investigate the general properties of Unified Dark Matter (UDM) scalar
field models with Lagrangians with a non-canonical kinetic term, looking
specifically for models that can produce a fast transition between an early
Einstein-de Sitter CDM-like era and a later Dark Energy like phase, similarly
to the barotropic fluid UDM models in JCAP1001(2010)014. However, while the
background evolution can be very similar in the two cases, the perturbations
are naturally adiabatic in fluid models, while in the scalar field case they
are necessarily non-adiabatic. The new approach to building UDM Lagrangians
proposed here allows to escape the common problem of the fine-tuning of the
parameters which plague many UDM models. We analyse the properties of
perturbations in our model, focusing on the the evolution of the effective
speed of sound and that of the Jeans length. With this insight, we can set
theoretical constraints on the parameters of the model, predicting sufficient
conditions for the model to be viable. An interesting feature of our models is
that what can be interpreted as w_{DE} can be <-1 without violating the null
energy conditions.
