Curvature properties of metric nilpotent Lie algebras which are independent of metric (Q524429)

The authors address the following interesting question: {Given a nilpotent Lie algebra \(\mathfrak g\), which vectors whose (respectively two-planes) maintain the sign of the Ricci curvature (respectively, sectional curvature), for all possible inner product on \(\mathfrak g\)?} Given a nilpotent Lie algebra \(\mathfrak g\), a classical result due to Milnor states that \(K(Z,Y)\geq 0\) for all \(Z\in \mathfrak z(\mathfrak g)\) and \(Y\in \mathfrak g\), and \(\mathrm{Ric}(X)\leq 0\) \(X\in [\mathfrak g,\mathfrak g]^\bot\) regardless of the inner product chosen for \(\mathfrak g\). The authors show that negative sectional or Ricci curvature is not possible to be maintained by the vectors or planes of \(\mathfrak g\), for all inner products. To the contrary, the set of elements for which the Ricci curvature is always non-negative is exactly the center, while requesting strictly positive leads to the set of nonzero elements simultaneously in the center and in the commutator. For the sectional curvature, they work with the Grassmannians of 2-planes in \(\mathfrak g\) and \(\mathfrak z(\mathfrak g)\). They describe the two-dimensional planes maintaining signs. In the second part of the papers, they focus on one-dimensional spaces which correspond to the eigenspace of the maximal (or minimal) eigenvalue of the Ricci operator, for any possible metric on the nilpotent Lie algebra. As it is pointed out in the abstract, that the closure of these subsets is the whole algebra \(\mathfrak g\), except when \(\mathfrak g\) is two-step nilpotent or when \(\mathfrak g\) contains a codimension-one abelian ideal.