On the `standard' condition for noncompact homogeneous Einstein spaces (Q1827417)

The reviewed paper is concerned with the open problem of classification of noncompact homogeneous Einstein spaces. Alekseevskii's conjecture (open so far) says that for any nonflat homogeneous Einstein space \(G/K\) the isotropy group \(K\) must be a maximal compact subgroup of \(G\). If \(G\) is a linear group the latter property implies that \(G/K\) is isometric to a Riemannian solvmanifold \((\mathcal S,g)\), \(\mathcal S\) being a simply connected solvable Lie group and \(g\) a left invariant metric on \(\mathcal S\). It is worth noticing that all known examples of noncompact homogeneous Einstein manifolds belong to the class of Riemannian solvmanifolds and moreover, they all are of `standard type', i.e., in the associated metric Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{s}\), the orthogonal complement \(\mathfrak{a}:=[\mathfrak{s},\mathfrak{s}]^\perp\) of the derived algebra is Abelian. The question whether nonstandard Einstein solvmanifolds exist at all is still open. The author proves certain properties of the metric Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{s}\) of a nonflat Einstein solvmanifold \((\mathcal S,g)\) satisfying \(\dim [\mathfrak{a},\mathfrak{a}]\leqslant 1\). As a corollary, she obtains some new sufficient conditions which imply standard type. These results give next practical hints about where not to search for possible counterexamples to the standard condition.