Closed geodesics in compact nilmanifolds (Q5953021)

The paper under review is devoted to the investigation of distribution of closed geodesics on compact 2-step nilmanifolds endowed with an invariant Riemannian metric. We recall that a compact Riemannian manifold \(M\) has \textsl{the density of closed geodesics property} if the vectors tangent to closed unit speed geodesics are dense in the unit tangent bundle of \(M\). The author uses the construction of 2-step nilpotent Lie algebras which is due to \textit{P.~Eberlein} and \textit{J. Heber} [Int. J. Math. 7, No. 4, 441--500 (1996; Zbl 0880.53042)]. The initial data of this construction are a compact Lie group \(G\) and its irreducible representation. The author takes \(G=\text{SU}(2)\) and its irreducible real representation on a real vector space of dimension \(2k+1\), \(k\geq2\). In this way, she obtains a 2-step nilpotent Lie algebra. The object of her study is then the corresponding simply connected 2-step nilpotent Lie group \(N\) endowed with an invariant metric. The main result of the paper states that for any lattice \(\Gamma\) in \(N\) the compact quotient manifold \(\Gamma\backslash N\) with the induced metric has the density of closed geodesics property. This series of examples clarifies a result by \textit{K.~B. Lee} and \textit{K. Park} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 45, No. 1, 1--14 (1996; Zbl 0862.53037)]. Namely, they proved that if a metric 2-step nilpotent Lie algebra \(\mathfrak N\) satisfies certain two conditions, then the quotient \(\Gamma\backslash N\), where \(N\) is the simply connected Lie group corresponding to \(\mathfrak N\) and \(\Gamma\) is any lattice in \(N\), has the density of closed geodesics property. \textit{M.~Mast} has shown [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 43, No. 3, 885--911 (1994; Zbl 0818.53065)] that the first condition is necessary. The above described examples demonstrate that the second condition is not necessary.