Isometry groups of homogeneous spaces with positive sectional curvature (Q5931426)

The main result of this paper is an explicit list of full isometry groups of the simply connected, homogeneous positively curved manifolds. This list is to be understood in the following sense: in the first place the underlying homogeneous space is given. In the second place, one finds the largest of the possible isometry groups belonging to the invariant metrics with positive sectional curvature on the underlying space. In particular, one can see from here the identity component of this largest isometry group. But, in almost half of the cases, a special phenomenon occurs: there exists a special invariant metric with positive sectional curvature for which the identity component of the full isometry group is essentially smaller! Such a new group, if it exists, is shown at the third place. Another curiosity is connected with the Aloff-Walach spaces \(N_{k,\ell}\). They have to be divided into subclasses with different largest (or ``smallest'') isometry groups according to the arithmetic properties of the topological invariant \(k^2+\ell^2 +k\ell\).