The reductive pair \((B_ 3,G_ 2)\) and affine connections on \(S^ 7\) (Q2366063)

Let \({\mathfrak g}\) be a Lie algebra over a field \(F\). A subalgebra \({\mathfrak h}\) of \({\mathfrak g}\) is called reductive subalgebra of \({\mathfrak g}\) if there exists a subspace \({\mathfrak m}\) of \({\mathfrak g}\) such that \({\mathfrak g}={\mathfrak m}+{\mathfrak h}\), \({\mathfrak m}\cap{\mathfrak h}=0\), and \(\text{ad }{\mathfrak h}({\mathfrak m})\subset {\mathfrak m}\). More generally, a homogeneous space \(G/H\) is called reductive if \(\text{Ad }H({\mathfrak m})\subset {\mathfrak m}\) holds. The goal of this paper is to investigate the reductive pairs \((G,H)\) where \(G=B_ 3\) and \(H=G_ 2\) and the characteristic of \(F\) is different from 2, 3. In particular, the algebra \(({\mathfrak m},[ , ]_{\mathfrak m})\) is determined, where \([ , ]_{\mathfrak m}\) denotes the Lie algebra product of \({\mathfrak g}\) followed by projection on \({\mathfrak m}\). It is shown that this algebra is isomorphic with the vector Malcev algebra of the octonions. As an application the authors determine all invariant affine connections on \(S^ 7=\text{Spin}(7)/G_ 2\) in terms of the compact Malcev algebra of dimension 7.