Semisimplicity of indefinite extrinsic symmetric spaces and mean curvature (Q2392581)

A nondegenerate submanifold \(M\) of a pseudo-Euclidean space \(\mathbb R^{p,q}\) is called extrinsic symmetric if for each \(x\in M\) the reflexion \(s_x:\mathbb R^{p,q}\to\mathbb R^{p,q}\) at the affine normal space maps \(M\) to \(M\). A large class of examples can be obtained in the following way. Let \(\mathfrak{g}\) be a Lie algebra which admits an ad(\(\mathfrak{g}\))-invariant nondegenerate inner product and an orthogonal Cartan decomposition \(\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{k} \oplus\mathfrak{p}\), i.e., \([\mathfrak{k},\mathfrak{k}]\subset\mathfrak{k}\), \([\mathfrak{k},\mathfrak{p}]\subset\mathfrak{p}\) and \([\mathfrak{p},\mathfrak{p}]=\mathfrak{k}\). Let \(G:=\langle\text{exp\;ad}(X)|_{\mathfrak{p}}\;|\;X\in\mathfrak{k}\rangle\). If \(\xi\) is a vector in \(\mathfrak{p}\) satisfying ad\((\xi)^3=-\text{ad}(\xi)\) then the orbit \(G\cdot\xi\) is an extrinsic symmetric space in \(\mathfrak{p}\cong\mathbb R^{p,q}\) and is called extrinsic symmetric space of Ferus type. In the reviewed paper the author proves that an indecomposable extrinsic symmetric space satisfies \(A_h^2\neq 0\) if and only if \(\mathfrak{g}\) is semisimple, where \(A_h\) is the shape operator with respect to the mean curvature vector \(h\) and \(\mathfrak{g}\) is the associated Lie algebra.