Higher degree Killing forms on 2-step nilmanifolds (Q2197776)

Killing forms in this article are studied on simply connected 2-step nilpotent Lie groups endowed with left-invariant Riemannian metrics, and they are classified when the center of the Lie group is at most two-dimensional. Initially, here some general results are proved. It is shown that the de Rham decomposition of nilpotent Lie groups is closely related to the decomposition of the underlying metric Lie algebra into an orthogonal direct sum of ideals. Also, it is shown that every left-invariant Killing form on a product of Riemannian Lie groups is a sum of Killing forms on the factors and a parallel form. Further it is proved that, if \(\mathfrak{n}\) is a non-abelian nilpotent Lie algebra and its center is one-dimensional, then \(\mathfrak{n}\) is isomorphic to the Heisenberg Lie algebra \(h^{2n+1}\) and its metric structure can be described by an invertible matrix in \(\mathrm{so}(2n)\). Then it is proved that, if \((\mathfrak{n}, g)\) is a 2-step nilpotent metric Lie algebra with two-dimensional center, then, if \((\mathfrak{n}, g\)) is irreducible, the space \(\mathcal{K}^p(\mathfrak{n},g)\) of Killing \(p\)-forms on \((\mathfrak{n}, g)\) has the following properties: \(\mathcal{K}^1(\mathfrak{n}, g)\) is two-dimensional; \(\mathcal{K}^2(\mathfrak{n}, g)\) is one-dimensional if \(\mathfrak{n}\) has a bi-invariant \(g\)-orthogonal complex structure, and zero otherwise; \(\mathcal{K}^p(\mathfrak{n}, g) = 0\) for \(4 \le p \le \dim(\mathfrak{n}) - 1\) and \(\mathcal{K}^p(\mathfrak{n}, g)\) one-dimensional if \(p = \dim(n)\). A similar description is given if \((\mathfrak{n}, g)\) is reducible.