Could Dark Matter Interactions be an Alternative to Dark Energy ?

We study the global dynamics of the universe within the framework of the Interacting Dark Matter (IDM) scenario. Assuming that the dark matter obeys the collisional Boltzmann equation, we can derive analytical solutions of the global density evolution, which can accommodate an accelerated expansion, equivalent to either the {\em quintessence} or the standard $\Lambda$ models, with the present time located after the inflection point. This is possible if there is a disequilibrium between the DM particle creation and annihilation processes with the former process dominating, which creates an effective source term with negative pressure. Comparing the predicted Hubble expansion of one of the IDM models (the simplest) with observational data we find that the effective annihilation term is quite small, as suggested by a variety of other recent experiments.