Stiefel manifolds and the existence of non-trivial generalizations of Riemannian symmetric spaces from a differentiable viewpoint (Q1174720)

As a natural generalisation of the Riemannian symmetric spaces the following classes have been considered by several authors: (A) The class of all regular Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric spaces \((k>1)\) (B) The class of all pointwise Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric spaces \((k>1)\). (C) The class of reduced Riemannian \(\Sigma\)-spaces. A pointwise Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric space is a connected Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) that admits, at each point \(m\), a global isometry \(s_ m\), with \(m\) as isolated fixed point, such that \((s_ m)^ k=\hbox{Id}\). Such a space is called regular Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric space if, for all \(m\) and \(p\) in \(M\), we have \(s_ m\circ s_ p=s_ x\circ s_ m\), where \(x=s_ m(p)\). A reduced Riemannian \(\Sigma\)-space is a homogeneous Riemannian manifold \(M=G/H\), where \(G\) is a connected Lie group of isometries of \(M\) which admits \(\Sigma\) as a Lie transformation group of automorphisms and such that the following conditions are satisfied: (i) Let \(G^ \Sigma\) be the subgroup of \(G\) consisting of the elements for which \(\sigma(g)=g\), for all \(\sigma\) in \(\Sigma\). Then, the identity component of \(G^ \Sigma\) is contained in \(H\) and \(H\) is contained in \(G^ \Sigma\). (ii) The diffeomorphisms \(s_ 0\) of \(M\) defined by \(s_ 0\circ \pi=\pi\circ\sigma\), for any \(\sigma\) in \(\Sigma\), are isometries of \(M\) (\(\pi\) is the canonical projection of \(G\) over \(G/H\)). The class (A) is strictly contained in (B) and in (C) [see \textit{O. Kowalski}, Generalized symmetric spaces, Lect. Notes Math. 805 (1980; Zbl 0431.53042); \textit{O. Kowalski} and \textit{M. Sekizawa}, Monatsh. Math. 103, 303-320 (1987; Zbl 0624.53028)]. In the paper under review it is first shown that the real Stiefel manifold \(M=V_{n,h}\) of the orthonormal \((n-h)\)-frames in the Euclidean \(n\)-dimensional space is a reduced Riemannian \(\Sigma\)-space if we regard \(M\) as the homogeneous space \(SO(n)/SO(h)\) endowed with the Riemannian metric induced by the Killing form and if we put \(\Sigma=\mathbb{Z}_ 2\times\Delta_ r\), where \(\Delta_ r\) is the dihedral group of order \(2r\) and \(r\) is the Coxeter number of \(SO(n-h)\), i.e. the height of a maximal root of \(SO(n-h)\) plus one. Then, by using this structure on the Stiefel manifolds, the author is able to produce examples of pointwise Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric spaces which are not diffeomorphic to any regular Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric space and of reduced Riemannian \(\Sigma\)-spaces which are not diffeomorphic to any pointwise Riemannian \(k\)-symmetric spaces. In other terms, he proves that the inclusions \((A)\subset(B)\cap(C)\subset(C)\) are strict, not only in a Riemannian sense (see above), but also in a differentiable sense.