Examples of austere orbits of the isotropy representations for semisimple pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces (Q2286712)

In this article examples of so-called austere submanifolds as adjoint orbits within the pseudo-hypersphere of a semisimple Lie algebra are exhibited. Let $(M,g)$ be a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. A submanifold $N\subset M$ is called \textit{austere} if all the odd-degree coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of the shape operator of any normal vector of $N$ within $M$ vanish. This implies that an austere subamifold has vanishing mean curvature hence it gives rise to a minimal submanifold within $(M,g)$. Let $G/H$ be a semisimple pseudo-Riemannian symmetric space and let $\sigma$ be an involution on the Lie algebra of $G$ whose fixed point set is precisely the Lie subalgebra of $H\subset G$. Consider the $(-1)$-eigenspace of $\sigma$, pick any vector $X$ from this $(-1)$-eigenspace and consider its $\operatorname{Ad}(H)$-orbit $M_X$ within the $(-1)$-eigenspace. The author's main result is a complete list of those restricted roots $\alpha$ through which the corresponding adjoint orbit $M_\alpha$ is an austere submanifold of the pseudo-hypersphere $S$ in the $(-1)$-eigenspace defined in an obvious way by the aid of the restricted Cartan form of the original semisimple Lie algebra (see the theorem together with Table 1 on p. 398--399).