The index of symmetry of a flag manifold (Q2633991)

The index of symmetry \(\iota_s(M)\) of a homogeneous Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) was defined in previous works by other authors as the dimension of the distribution of symmetry \({\mathcal{D}}\). It is equal to \(\dim(M)\) for symmetric spaces, hence the coindex of symmetry (\(\dim(M)-\iota_s(M)\)) gives a characterization of the ``distance'' of \(M\) from being symmetric. The integral submanifolds of the integrable distribution \({\mathcal{D}}\) are symmetric spaces embedded in \(M\) as totally geodesic submanifolds. The present paper is dealing with compact generalized flag manifolds, which are all compact Kähler manifolds admitting transitive semisimple compact Lie groups of biholomorphic isometries. Considering the \(G\)-invariant Kähler structure \((g,J)\) and assuming that \(G=I_0(M)\) is simple, it is shown that the leaves of symmetry are complex, totally geodesic submanifolds which are irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces. Further, there exist a compact Lie subgroup \(H'\supset H\), depending only on the complex structure \(J\) (and not on the metric \(g\)) such that the fibers of the fibration \(G/H\rightarrow G/H'\) coincide with the leaves of symmetry. Also an estimate for the coindex of symmetry is proved, which is a refinement of the general result from the previous works.