Homogeneous manifolds with nonpositive curvature operator (Q2639355)

A certain subclass of solvable Lie algebras (so-called NCO-algebras) is defined such that the associated simply connected Lie group admits a metric with nonpositive sectional curvature. The main result is: Theorem. A simply connected Lie group S admits a left invariant metric with nonpositive curvature operator and no flat de Rham factor iff S is an NCO-algebra.