Quintessence and inflation from the symmetry breaking transition of the internal manifold

We show that even in the simple framework of pure Kaluza-Klein gravity the shape moduli can generate potentials supporting inflation and/or quintessence. Using the shape moduli as the inflaton or quintessence field has the additional benefit of being able to explain symmetry breaking in a natural geometric way. A numerical analysis suggests that in these models it may be possible to obtain sufficient e-foldings during inflation as well as a small cosmological constant at the current epoch (without fine-tuning), while preserving the constraint coming from the fine structure constant.