Submanifold geometry in symmetric spaces of noncompact type (Q2042161)

This survey article provides a really nice introduction and summary of known facts about symmetric spaces from the perspective of submanifold theory. It is is divided into 6 sections. The first of them is an introduction, where the authors motivate the concept of symmetric space by giving historical references and applications to many areas in differential geometry. In the second one, they review the current definition of symmetric spaces, they explain some basic properties of them and they explain the algebraic characterization of the simplest class of submanifolds in symmetric spaces, totally geodesic submanifolds. In the third section, they particularize their study of symmetric spaces to those of non-compact type by giving a very didactic approach to the so-called solvable model. In the fourth section, they review known results on polar actions and homogeneous and isoparametric hypersurfaces in symmetric spaces of non-compact type and rank one. In the fifth section, they focus on the geometric implications of the theory of parabolic subalgebras of semisimple Lie algebras. In particular, they explain the so-called canonical extension method. This allows to extend some types of actions or submanifolds from a special kind of totally geodesic submanifold known as boundary component to higher rank symmetric spaces providing an effective way to construct examples in symmetric spaces of higher rank. In the sixth section they list some open problems in the area of submanifold theory of symmetric spaces. It must be mentioned that Problem (1) was solved in [the first author et al., J. Reine Angew. Math. 779, 189--222 (2021; \url{doi:10.1515/crelle-2021-0043})]. The second question in Problem (2) was answered in [\textit{A. Rodríguez-Vázquez}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 147, 5417--5420 (2019; Zbl 1428.53034)]. In [the second and the third author, ``Isoparametric hypersurfaces in symmetric spaces of non-compact type and higher rank'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1203.1960}] new examples of inhomogeneous isoparametric hypersurfaces in symmetric spaces of higher rank have been constructed by a similar extension procedure as the canonical extension method, thus given an answer to Problem (8).