Invariant almost complex geometry on flag manifolds: geometric formality and Chern numbers (Q509570)

In the first part of the paper under review, the authors study geometric formality for several generalized flag manifolds, including full flag manifolds of exceptional Lie groups. Recall that a Riemannian metric is called formal if every wedge product of harmonic forms is harmonic. A smooth manifold is called geometrically formal if it admits a formal Riemannian metric. One remarkable result in this direction is the following: For a connected compact Lie group and a maximal torus \(T\) in \(G\), the full flag manifold \(G/T\) is not geometrically formal. The second part of the paper is devoted to the problem of the classification of invariant almost complex structures on generalized flag manifolds using topological methods. The authors find various examples of flag manifolds with two, three, and four invariant almost complex structures, up to conjugation and equivalence. In order to distinguish non-equivalent almost complex structures, the corresponding Chern numbers are used.