Homogeneous Einstein metrics and simplicial complexes (Q2494185)

This article is another piece in a much larger research project, namely the investigation of existence and non-existence of \(G\)-invariant Einstein metrics on compact homogeneous spaces \(G/H\). While the first results on this problem were mainly obtained by a detailed study of the isotropy representation [see \textit{A. L. Besse}, Einstein Manifolds, Springer-Verlag (1987; Zbl 0613.53001) for a survey], a stronger, more recent approach is by a combination of global variational and topological techniques. The starting point was to attach a certain graph \(\Gamma_{G/H}\) to a compact homogeneous space and the proof that \(G/H\) admits a \(G\)-invariant Einstein metric if \(\Gamma_{G/H}\) has at least two non-toral components [see \textit{M. Wang} and \textit{W. Ziller}, Invent. Math. 84, 177--194 (1986; Zbl 0596.53040) and \textit{C. Böhm, M. Wang} and \textit{W. Ziller}, Geom. Funct. Anal. 14, 681--733 (2004; Zbl 1068.53029)]. The author refines this method by passing to the simplicial complex of \(G/H\) (and a so-called new ''extended simplicial complex'', which is homotopy equivalent to the former one). He proves Theorem A. Let \(G/H\) be a compact homogeneous space with both \(G\) and \(H\) connected. If the simplicial complex of \(G/H\) is not contractible, then \(G/H\) admits a \(G\)-invariant Einstein metric. (the converse of this statement is known to be false). By definition, a prime (compact simply connected non-product) homogeneous space (with \(G\) connected, simply connected and semisimple) is one for which \(H\) and its normalizer inside \(G\) have the same rank. By a result of Quillen, Theorem A then implies: Theorem B. Let \(G/H\) be a compact simply connected homogeneous space with \(G\) connected, simply connected and semisimple. If there exists a field \({\mathbb F}\) such that the reduced homology with coefficients in \({\mathbb F}\) of the simplicial complexes of all prime factors of \(G/H\) does not vanish, then \(G/H\) admits a \(G\)-invariant Einstein metric. Applications of Theorem B are given in [\textit{C. Böhm} and \textit{M. M. Kerr}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 358, 1455--1468 (2006; Zbl 1087.53042) and \textit{C. Böhm}, Math. Z. 250, 279--286 (2005; Zbl 1166.53311)]. The plan of the article is as follows: Introduction; Section 1. On the proof of Theorem A [sketch]; Section 2. Examples; Section 3. The simplicial complex of product homogeneous spaces; Section 4. Preliminaries [the symmetric space \({\mathcal M}^G_1\) of \(G\)-invariant metrics of volume \(1\)]; Section 5. The asymptotic behaviour of the scalar curvature functional [on \({\mathcal M}^G_1\); this is the core of the article]; Section 6. Homogeneous spaces of finite type; Section 7. The simplicial complex of arbitrary homogeneous spaces; Section 8. Variational methods [and proof of Theorem A].