Noncomplete affine structures on Lie algebras of maximal class (Q1607814)

The theme of the paper under review is the relationship between representation theory of a real finite-dimensional Lie algebra \({\mathfrak g}\) and the affine structures on \({\mathfrak g}\). An affine structure on \({\mathfrak g}\) is a bilinear map \(\nabla\colon{\mathfrak g}\times{\mathfrak g}\to{\mathfrak g}\) satisfying \(\nabla(X,Y)-\nabla(Y,X)=[X,Y]\) and \(\nabla(X,\nabla(Y,Z))-\nabla(Y,\nabla(X,Z))=\nabla([X,Y],Z)\) for all \(X,Y,Z\in{\mathfrak g}\). An affine structure on \({\mathfrak g}\) naturally leads to a faithful representation of \({\mathfrak g}\) on \({\mathfrak g}\oplus{\mathbb R}\). The affine structure \(\nabla\) is said to be complete if the linear map \(\nabla(\cdot,Y)\colon{\mathfrak g}\to{\mathfrak g}\) is nilpotent for all \(Y\in{\mathfrak g}\). The main results of the paper concern the nilpotent \(n\)-dimensional Lie algebra \(L_n\) having a basis \(\{X_1,X_2,\dots,X_n\}\) such that \([X_1,X_i]=X_{i+1}\) for \(2\leq i\leq n-1\) and \([X_i,X_j]=0\) whenever \(2\leq i,j\leq n\). Namely, one constructs a non-complete affine structure on \(L_n\) for arbitrary \(n\) (Proposition~2.4). The corresponding result in representation theory is that there exists a faithful representation \(\rho\) of \(L_n\) on some \((n+1)\)-dimensional vector space such that \(\rho(X)\) is non-nilpotent for some \(X\in L_n\) (Theorem~2.3). In this connection, we should mention another fact (Proposition~1.4): one can construct faithful representations by nilpotent maps starting from any faithful representation of an indecomposable nilpotent Lie algebra, and this construction can be carried out in such a way that the dimension of the representation space does not increase. We conclude by mentioning that the paper under review is clearly written and contains certain ideas and constructions that are undoubtedly interesting in connection with the various improvements of Ado's classical theorem.