Infinitesimal isospectral deformations of symmetric spaces. II: Quotients of the special unitary group of rank two (Q1940448)

The article is a sequel to the authors' paper [Mém. Soc. Math. Fr., Nouv. Sér. 108, 1--94 (2007; Zbl 1152.53040); Ann. Inst. Fourier 57, No. 7, 2143--2182 (2007; Zbl 1140.44001)] and it is the second part of the authors' paper [Pure Appl. Math. Q. 6, No. 3, 915--982 (2010; Zbl 1230.58015)]. In this work, the authors consider symmetric spaces \(X\) of compact type which are quotients of \(G=\mathrm{SU}(n)\) with \(n\geq 3\). It is also assumed that \(X\) is irreducible and reduced. The authors are interested in the space of infinitesimal (Laplace-) isospectral deformations in the sense of Guillemin. In this context ``irreducible'' means that \(X\) is not the product of (at least) two non-trivial symmetric spaces. The definition of ``reduced'' is in the sense of [Zbl 1152.53040], namely that \(X\) is not a cover of another symmetric space. There is also a construction, explained in [Zbl 1152.53040] which associates to a possibly non-reduced space \(X\) a reduced space \(X_{\text{red}}\), so that \(X\) covers \(X_{\text{red}}\). The subject of the article under review are the two cases: (1) \(X\) is the reduced space for \(\mathrm{SU}(3)/\mathrm{SO}(3)\) (2) \(X\) is the reduced space for \(\mathrm{SU}(3)\). In both cases, the infinitesimal isospectral deformations can be explicitely determined in terms of the Radon transform. The main results in the case (1) are presented in Section 7, the main result in the case (2) in Section 13. The article is self-contained, contains a good introduction into the subject and is well-structured. A central ingredient of the article is a profound analysis of the representation theory for \(\mathrm{SU}(3)\).