Invariant connections on non-irreducible symmetric spaces with simple Lie group (Q6583771)

Let \(G/H\) be a symmetric space of a simple Lie group \(G\), and let \(\mathfrak g=\mathfrak h\oplus \mathfrak m\) be the canonical decomposition of the Lie algebra of \(G\) under the symmetry. The space \(G/H\) is called irreducible (resp., reducible) if the isotropy representation \(\mathrm{ad}^{\mathfrak m}\colon \mathfrak h\to \mathrm{End}(\mathfrak m)\) is irreducible (resp., reducible).\N\NThe authors study invariant connections on a symmetric space \(G/H\), with \(G\) simple. The starting point is Nomizu's correspondence between the set of \(G\)-invariant connections on \(G/H\) and the vector space \(\Hom_H^{\mathbb R}(\mathfrak m\otimes \mathfrak m,\mathfrak m)\) of \(Ad_H\)-invariant products on \(\mathfrak m\). The main results of the paper are the following theorems.\N\NTheorem. Let \(G/H\) be a non-irreducible symmetric space with simple Lie group \(G\). Then\N\N(a) \(G/H\) is even dimensional and non-compact;\N\N(b) \(H\) is non-compact and non-semisimple;\N\N(c) The canonical connection \(\nabla^0\) is the only \(G\)-invariant connection on \(G/H\).\N\NTheorem. Let \(G/H\) be an odd dimensional symmetric space with simple Lie group \(G\). Then \(G/H\) is irreducible and \(H\) is semisimple.\N\NTheorem. Let \(G/H\) be a symmetric space with semisimple Lie group \(G\). Then the canonical connection~\(\nabla^0\) is the only special connection on \(G/H\) (i.e., torsion free and with the same curvature as \(\nabla^0\)).\N\NFinally, as an illustration, the authors analyze the example \(\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{R})/\mathrm{S}(\mathrm{GL}(r,\mathbb{R})\times \mathrm{GL}(n-r,\mathbb{R}))\). Note that, while most existing results in this direction regard compact spaces, the above theorems have no compactness assumption on the space \(G/H\).