A curve of nilpotent Lie algebras which are not Einstein nilradicals (Q2270152)

A Riemannian manifold is called Einstein if its Ricci tensor is a scalar multiple of the metric. It is not easy to construct examples of such manifolds. For instance, in the non-compact homogeneous case, all known examples are solvmanifolds, that is, simply-connected solvable Lie groups \(S\) endowed with left-invariant Riemannian metrics, and the Alekseevsky conjecture asserts that there are no further examples. In particular, if \(S\) is a solvmanifold with metric Lie algebra \((\mathfrak s,\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle)\), one considers the orthogonal decomposition \(\mathfrak s=\mathfrak a\oplus\mathfrak n\), where \(\mathfrak n=[\mathfrak s,\mathfrak s]\), and declares \(S\) to be standard if \(\mathfrak a\) is abelian. The case of standard solvmanifolds has been deeply studied by \textit{J. Heber} [Invent. Math. 133, No.~2, 279--352 (1998; Zbl 0906.53032)], and, by results of \textit{J. Lauret} [Q. J. Math. 52, No.~4, 463--470 (2001; Zbl 1015.53025)], the information to decide whether a given solvmanifold is Einstein or not is contained in its nilradical. A nilpotent Lie algebra which is the nilradical of the Lie algebra of a standard Einstein solvmanifold is called an Einstein nilradical. It turns out that the classification of Einstein solvmanifolds is equivalent to that of Einstein nilradicals, which is still left wide open. For quite some time, the only known obstruction for a nilpotent Lie algebra to be an Einstein nilradical was that it has to admit a \(\mathbb N\)-gradation. Recently, several examples of \(\mathbb N\)-graded Lie algebras which are not Einstein nilradicals have been constructed. However, all these results supply only finitely many examples in each dimension. In this paper, the author exhibits two one-parameter groups of pairwise non-isomorphic nine-dimensional two-step nilpotent Lie algebras which are not Einstein nilradicals, by using tools from geometric invariant theory and moment maps.