Compactification, vacuum energy and quintessence

We study the possibility that the vacuum energy density of scalar and inter nal-space gauge fields arising from the process of dimensional reduction of higher dimensional gravity theories plays the role of quintessence. We sho w that, for the multidimensional Einstein-Yang-Mills system compactified on a R x S-3 x S-d topology there are classically stable solutions such that the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe at present can be accoun ted for without upsetting structure formation scenarios or violating observ ational bounds on the vacuum energy density.