\(\sigma\)-actions and symmetric triads (Q1732297)

For an automorphism $\sigma$ of a group $G$ one defines the $\sigma $-action of $G$ on itself by \[ g\cdot x=gx\sigma (g)^{-1}. \] The group $G$ is assumed to be a compact connected simple Lie group, and $\sigma $ of outer type. The aim of this paper is to study the geometry of the orbits for a $\sigma $ action. In the first section the author associates to the automorphism $\sigma $ a symmetric triad $(\tilde \Sigma ,\Sigma,W)$. One fixes a maximal torus $A$ of the group $K_{\sigma }$ , the fixed point set of $\sigma $. Then $\Sigma $ is the root system of the pair $(\mathfrak{k}_{\sigma },\mathfrak{a})$, where $\mathfrak{k}_{\sigma }=\mathrm{Lie}(K_{\sigma })$, $\mathfrak{a}=\mathrm{Lie}(A)$, $\tilde \Sigma $ is the root system of the pair $(\mathfrak{g}^{\mathbb{C}},\mathfrak{a})$, and $W$ is the set of nonzero weights of the space $\mathfrak{m}_{\sigma }=\{X\in\mathfrak{g}\mid \sigma (X)=-X\}$ with respect to $\mathfrak{a}$. \par In the second section, by using the triad $(\tilde \Sigma ,\Sigma ,W)$ associated to the automorphism $\sigma $, the author studies geometric properties of the orbits. To $H\in\mathfrak{a}$ one associates the orbit \[ \mathcal{O}_H=\{g\exp 2H\sigma (g)^{-1}\mid g\in G\}. \] The author determines some corespondence between algebraic properties of $H$ and geometric properties of $\mathcal{O}_H$. The main result (Theorem 2.8) states under which condition on $H$ the orbit $\mathcal{O}_H$ is totally geodesic, austere, or minimal. The corresponding properties of $H$ are expressed in terms of the triad $(\tilde \Sigma ,\Sigma ,W)$.