Conformal mappings onto Einstein spaces (Q5906766)

\textit{H. W. Brinkmann} [Math. Ann. 91, 269-278 (1924; JFM 50.0504.01)] reduced the question whether a Riemannian space admits a conformal mapping onto some Einstein space to the question of the existence of a solution for a Cauchy-type nonlinear system of differential equations. The authors of this paper develop a method for reducing the Brinkmann nonlinear system to a Cauchy-type linear system. This method is used in evaluating the degree of parametric arbitrariness in the solution of this problem and in solving the problem completely for Riemannian symmetric spaces. In particular it is proved that compact conformally Euclidean symmetric spaces do not admit nonhomothetic conformal mappings ``on the whole'' onto Einstein spaces.