Tubular structures of compact symmetric spaces associated with the exceptional Lie group \(F_4\) (Q2387803)

The aim of the present paper is to discuss the cohomogeneity one isometric actions of \(\text{Spin} (9) \times \text{Spin} (9)\), of \(\text{Spin} (9)\) and of \(\text{Sp}(3) \times \text{Sp}(1) / {\mathbb {Z}}_{2}\) on the compact symmetric spaces \(F_{4}\), \(F_{4}/ (\text{Sp} (3) \times \text{Sp}(1)) /{\mathbb {Z}_{2}}\), and \(F_{4}/\text{Spin} (9)\), respectively. The authors prove that these symmetric spaces have got well-defined tubular structures around reflective totally geodesic submanifolds. For the first action, the principal orbits are proved to be tubular hypersurfaces around the singular orbit \( \text{Spin}(9)\subset F_4\), which is totally geodesic. Moreover, the whole manifold \(F_4\) is shown to be a compact tube around \( \text{Spin}(9)\), the radius of which is equal to \(\pi /{\sqrt{2 \kappa}}\), where \(\kappa \) denotes the maximal sectional curvature in \(F_{4}\). Similar results were obtained for the isometric action of \(\text{Spin} (9)\) on the symmetric space \(F_{4}/(\text{Sp}(3) \times \text{Sp}(1))/{\mathbb {Z}}_{2}\). The principal orbits are shown to be tubular hypersurfaces around a totally geodesic submanifold, isomorphic to \(G^+_4({\mathbb{R}}^9)\). Finally, concerning the last action, it is proved that the principal orbits represent the homogeneous space \(K/(\text{Spin}(4) \times \text{Spin}(3))/ {\mathbb {Z}}_{2}\) (here, \(K\) denotes the symmetric subgroup of \(F_{4}\) that is isometric to \(\text{Spin}(3) \times \text{Spin}(1) / {\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\)). The authors obtain a simple method to calculate the volumes of the symmetric spaces \(F_{4}\), \(F_{4}/(\text{Sp}(3) \times \text{Sp}(1))/{\mathbb {Z}_{2}}\) and \(F_{4}/ \text{Spin}(9)\). As an application of these results, the authors show how the volumes of \(F_4\), \(F_4/(\text{Sp}(3) \times{\text{Sp}(3)/{\mathbb{Z}_{2}}}\) and of the octonion projective plane \({\mathbb{O}}\mathbb{P}^2\) can be computed using the general formulae of the volumes of tubes.