A sufficient condition for congruency of orbits of Lie groups and some applications (Q387579)

When a connected Lie group acts on a smooth manifold which is not necessarily compact, there may be many non-equivalent orbits. Suppose \(G\) is a subgroup of the isometry group \(\text{Isom}(M)\) for a Riemannian manifold \(M\). If any two orbits \(Gx,Gy\) \((x,y\in M)\) are mutually equivalent by some element \(g\in \text{Isom}(M)\), that is \(gGx=Gy\), then \(G\) is said to have the \textit{congruency of orbits}. In this paper the authors give a sufficient condition to determine which isometric actions have the \textit{congruency of orbits}. They give a unified proof for the following isometric actions (the results have been known): (1) The actions of \(U(1)\) on the spheres \(S^{2n+1}\) which induce the Hopf fibrations. (2) Certain actions on the hyperbolic space which induce the horosphere foliations. (3) Certain actions on symmetric space of noncompact type. (4) Certain actions on symmetric space of noncompact type which induce the horocycle foliations. The above manifolds \(M\) are homogeneous, that is \(M\) admits a transitive group \(G\) of isometries. If \(H\) is a normal subgroup of \(G\), it is obvious that \(H\) has the congruency of orbits. The unified proof of the results (1)-(4) is due to a Lie algebra argument. Also, the authors give another new example of the congruency of orbits by solvable groups of the parabolic subgroup on Riemannian symmetric spaces of noncompact type.