A convexity theorem for noncommutative gradient flows (Q1961715)

The author studies the convexity properties of gradient flows on Riemannian symmetric spaces. More precisely, the author considers actions of a reductive Lie group \(G\) with Cartan decomposition \(G=K\exp {\mathfrak p}\) on a Riemannian manifold \(M\) for which \(K\) acts by isometries and the vector fields \(\varphi(X)\) induced from \(X\in{\mathfrak p}\) are gradient vector fields. In such a situation one has a gradient map \(\Phi:M \to{\mathfrak p}^*\) given by \(\Phi(q)(X) =\varphi (X)(q)\). Under these conditions the metric on \(M\) is called a gradient metric with respect to the action. The main result is obtained for the case where \(M=G/K\) and the action is just the left translation. Then for any gradient metric the corresponding gradient map has an open convex image and the corestriction \(\Phi:G/ K\to\Phi (G/K)\) is a diffeomorphism. The proof of this result is a very clever combination of Kostant's convexity theorem, an explicit \(Sl_2\)-reduction, and Fenchel's convexity theorem. This result generalizes and unifies various older convexity theorems as is shown in the last part of the paper.