Almost complex structures on quaternion-Kähler manifolds and inner symmetric spaces (Q538407)

The first main result of the paper says: A compact quaternionic-Kähler manifold with a positive scalar curvature, which is not isometric to the complex Grassmannian \(Gr_2({\mathbb C}^{n+2})\), has no weak almost complex structure, in the sense that the tangent bundle \(TM\) is not stably isomorphic to a complex vector bundle. A symmetric space \(G/H\) is said to be inner if \(G\) and \(H\) are of equal rank. A second result says: A \(4n\)-dimensional simply connected irreducible inner symmetric space of compact type is weakly complex if and only if it is a sphere or a Hermitian symmetric space. The third result states: An irreducible component of a simply connected inner symmetric space of compact type admitting a weak almost complex structure is isomorphic to an even-dimensional sphere or to a Hermitian symmetric space or (conceivably) to the exceptional symmetric space \(\frac{E_7}{(SU(8)/{\mathbb Z}_2)}\).