On space forms of Grassmann manifolds (Q1360938)

One of the problems in Riemannian geometry is to classify (up to isometry) all manifolds having a simply connected Riemannian manifold as universal Riemannian cover. In [``Spaces of constant curvature'', McGraw-Hill, New York etc. (1967; Zbl 0162.53304)], \textit{J. A. Wolf} classifies the classical Grassmann manifolds. In this paper, the author shows that there is a class of Grassmann space forms, whose holonomy groups differ from those of all other compact locally irreducible Riemannian manifolds of the same dimension that are not included in Wolf's classification. In holonomy theory, two groups (even abstractly isomorphic) are considered distinct if they are not conjugate in the relevant orthogonal group. \textit{A. Besse} [``Einstein manifolds'', Springer, Berlin etc. (1987; Zbl 0613.53001)] observes that two isomorphic holonomy groups are conjugate in the orthogonal group if they are connected. The author classifies all of these new Grassman space forms and as an application proves that a theorem of Besse cannot be extended to non-simply-connected manifolds.