Einstein solvmanifolds are standard (Q624922)

Which homogeneous spaces admit an invariant Einstein Riemannian metric, both in the compact and the noncompact case, is still an open question. The paper is focusing on the noncompact case. The known examples of noncompact homogeneous Einstein manifolds are solvmanifolds, i.e., simply connected solvable Lie groups \(S\) with a left invariant metric. Further, all examples of Einstein solvmanifolds satisfy the following condition: If \({\mathfrak{s}}= {\mathfrak{a}}\oplus {\mathfrak{n}}\) is the orthogonal decomposition of the Lie algebra \({\mathfrak{s}}\) of \(S\) with \({\mathfrak{n}}= [{\mathfrak{s}},{\mathfrak{s}}]\), then \([{\mathfrak{a}},{\mathfrak{a}}]=0\). A solvmanifold with this property is called standard. Standard solvmanifolds have nice properties, many remarkable structural and uniqueness results were derived in a previous work. The main result of the present paper states that any Einstein solvmanifold is standard. There is a conjecture that all noncompact homogeneous Einstein manifolds are solvmanifolds. If this conjecture turns out to be true, the result of the paper implies that all noncompact homogeneous Einstein manifolds are standard solvmanifolds.