On similarity homogeneous locally compact spaces with intrinsic metric

In this article, we generalize partially the theorem of V. N. Berestovskii on characterization of similarity homogeneous (nonhomogeneous) Riemannian manifolds, i.e., Riemannian manifolds admitting transitive group of metric similarities other than motions to the case of locally compact similarity homogeneous (nonhomogeneous) spaces with intrinsic metric satisfying the additional assumption that the canonically conformally equivalent homogeneous space is δ-homogeneous or a space of curvature bounded below in the sense of A. D. Aleksandrov. Under the same assumptions, we prove the conjecture of V. N. Berestovskii on topological structure of such spaces.     

Curvatures of homogeneous Randers spaces

We study curvatures of homogeneous Randers spaces. After deducing the coordinate-free formulas of the flag curvature and Ricci scalar of homogeneous Randers spaces, we give several applications. We first present a direct proof of the fact that a homogeneous Randers space is Ricci quadratic if and only if it is a Berwald space. We then prove that any left invariant Randers metric on a non-commutative nilpotent Lie group must have three flags whose flag curvature is positive, negative and zero, respectively. This generalizes a result of J.A. Wolf on Riemannian metrics. We prove a conjecture of J. Milnor on the characterization of central elements of a real Lie algebra, in a more generalized sense. Finally, we study homogeneous Finsler spaces of positive flag curvature and particularly prove that the only compact connected simply connected Lie group admitting a left invariant Finsler metric with positive flag curvature is SU(2)$\text{SU}\left(2\right)$.     

On δ-homogeneous Riemannian manifolds

We study in this paper previously defined by V.N. Berestovskii and C.P. Plaut δ-homogeneous spaces in the case of Riemannian manifolds and prove that they constitute a new proper subclass of geodesic orbit (g.o.) spaces with non-negative sectional curvature, which properly includes the class of all normal homogeneous Riemannian spaces.     

Three-step Harmonic Solvmanifolds

The Lichnerowicz conjecture asserted that every harmonic Riemannian manifold is locally isometric to a two-point homogeneous space. In 1992, E. Damek and F. Ricci produced a family of counter-examples to this conjecture, which arise as abelian extensions of two-step nilpotent groups of type-H. In this paper we consider a broader class of Riemannian manifolds: solvmanifolds of Iwasawa type with algebraic rank one and two-step nilradical. Our main result shows that the Damek–Ricci spaces are the only harmonic manifolds of this type.     

Geodesic spheres and two-point homogeneous spaces

In the Osserman conjecture and in the isoparametric conjecture it is stated that two-point homogeneous spaces may be characterized via the constancy of the eigenvalues of the Jacobi operator or the shape operator of geodesic spheres, respectively. These conjectures remain open, but in this paper we give complete positive results for similar statements about other symmetric endomorphism fields on small geodesic spheres. In addition, we derive more characteristic properties for this class of spaces by using other properties of small geodesic spheres. In particular, we study Riemannian manifolds with (curvature) homogeneous geodesic spheres. Supported by the Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina.     

Principal Gelfand pairs

Let X = G/K be a connected Riemannian homogeneous space of a real Lie group G. The homogeneous space X is called commutative or the pair (G, K) is called a Gelfand pair if the algebra of G-invariant differential operators on X is commutative. We prove an effective commutativity criterion and classify Gelfand pairs under two mild technical constraints. In particular, we obtain several new examples of commutative homogeneous spaces that are not of Heisenberg type.     

Multipliers on homogeneous Banach spaces with respect to Jacobi polynomials

A bounded linear operator is called multiplier with respect to Jacobi polynomials if and only if it commutes with all Jacobi translation operators on $[-1,1]$ . Multipliers on homogeneous Banach spaces on $[-1,1]$ determined by the Jacobi translation operator are introduced and studied. First we prove four equivalent characterizations of a multiplier for an arbitrary homogeneous Banach spaces $B$ on $[-1,1]$ . One of them implies the existence of an algebra isomorphism from the set of all multipliers on $B$ into the set of all pseudomeasures. Further, we study multipliers on specific examples of homogeneous Banach spaces on $[-1,1]$ . Amongst others, multipliers on the Wiener algebra, on the Beurling space and on Sobolev spaces are analyzed. We obtain that the multiplier spaces of the Wiener algebra, the Beurling space and of all Sobolev spaces are isometric isomorphic to each other. Furthermore, these multiplier spaces are all isometric isomorphic to the set of all pseudomeasures.     

Geodesic flows on Riemannian g.o. spaces

We prove the integrability of geodesic flows on the Riemannian g.o. spaces of compact Lie groups, as well as on a related class of Riemannian homogeneous spaces having an additional principal bundle structure.     

Locally conformally homogeneous pseudo-Riemannian spaces

Locally homogeneous Riemannian spaces were studied in [1–4]. Locally conformally homogeneous Riemannian spaces were considered in [10]. Moreover, the theorem claiming that every such space is either conformally flat or conformally equivalent to a locally homogeneous Riemannian space was proved.In this article, we study locally conformally homogeneous pseudo-Riemannian spaces and prove a theorem on their structure. Using three-dimensional Lie groups and the six-dimensional Heisenberg group [11], we construct some examples showing the difference between the Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian cases for such spaces.     

Homogeneous nearly K?hler manifolds

The structure of nearly K?hler manifolds was studied by Gray in several articles, mainly in Gray (Math Ann 223:233?C248, 1976). More recently, a relevant progress on the subject has been done by Nagy. Among other results, he proved that a complete strict nearly K?hler manifold is locally a Riemannian product of homogeneous nearly K?hler spaces, twistor spaces over quaternionic K?hler manifolds and six-dimensional (6D) nearly K?hler manifolds, where the homogeneous nearly K?hler factors are also 3-symmetric spaces. In the present article, we show some further properties relative to the structure of nearly K?hler manifolds and, using the lists of 3-symmetric spaces given by Wolf and Gray, we display the exhaustive list of irreducible simply connected homogeneous strict nearly K?hler manifolds. For such manifolds, we give details relative to the intrinsic torsion and the Riemannian curvature.     

Curvature Estimates for Irreducible Symmetric Spaces

By making use of the classification of real simple Lie algebra, we get the maximum of the squared length of restricted roots case by case, and thus get the upper bounds of sectional curvature for irreducible Riemannian symmetric spaces of compact type. As an application, this paper verifies Sampson's conjecture in most cases for irreducible Riemannian symmetric spaces of noncompact type.     

On the affine group of a normal homogeneous manifold

A very important class of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds are the so-called normal homogeneous spaces, which have associated a canonical connection. In this study, we obtain geometrically the (connected component of the) group of affine transformations with respect to the canonical connection for a normal homogeneous space. The naturally reductive case is also treated. This completes the geometric calculation of the isometry group of naturally reductive spaces. In addition, we prove that for normal homogeneous spaces the set of fixed points of the full isotropy is a torus. As an application of our results it follows that the holonomy group of a homogeneous fibration is contained in the group of (canonically) affine transformations of the fibers; in particular, this holonomy group is a Lie group (this is a result of Guijarro and Walschap).     

The role of restriction theorems in harmonic analysis on harmonic NA groups

We shall obtain inequalities for Fourier transform via moduli of continuity on NA groups. These results in particular settle the conjecture posed in a recent paper by W.O. Bray and M. Pinsky in the context of noncompact rank one symmetric spaces. These problems naturally demand versions of Fourier restriction theorem on these spaces which we shall prove. We shall also elaborate on the connection between the restriction theorem and the Kunze-Stein phenomena on NA groups. For noncompact Riemannian symmetric spaces of rank one analogues of all the results follow the same way.     

Weakly symmetric spaces and spherical varieties

Weakly symmetric homogeneous spaces were introduced by A. Selberg in 1956. We prove that, for a real reductive algebraic group, they can be characterized as the spaces of real points of affine spherical homogeneous varieties of the complexified group. As an application, under the same assumption on the transitive group, we show that weakly symmetric spaces are precisely the homogeneous Riemannian manifolds with commutative algebra of invariant differential operators.Supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant No. 95-01-01263.Supported by the U. S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, Award No. 206, Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant No. 98-01-00598, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.     

Homogeneous Randers spaces with isotropic S-curvature and positive flag curvature

In this paper, we will give a complete classification of homogeneous Randers spaces with isotropic S-curvature and positive flag curvature. This results in a large class of Finsler spaces with non-constant positive flag curvature. At the final part of the paper, we prove a rigidity result asserting that a homogeneous Randers space with almost isotropic S-curvature and negative Ricci scalar must be Riemannian.     

Classification des variété approximativement kähleriennes homogénes

A Riemannian homogeneous manifold admitting a strict nearly-Kähler structure is 3-symmetric. We actually classify them in dimension 6 and use previous results of Swann, Cleyton and Nagy to prove the conjecture in higher dimensions. The six-dimensional homogeneous spaces, S³ × S³, S⁶, CP(3) and the flag manifold F(1, 2) have a unique (after a change of scale) nearly-Kähler, invariant structure. For the first one we solve a differential equation on the SU(3)-structure given by Reyes Carrión. For the last two it is obtained by canonical variation of the Kähler structure of the twistor space over a four-dimensional manifold. Finally, from Bär, a nearly-Kähler structure on the sphere S⁶ corresponds to a constant 3-form on the Riemannian cone R⁷.Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000): 53C15, 53C25, 53C30, 53C56.     

Analytic and Reidemeister torsion for representations in finite type Hilbert modules

For a closed Riemannian manifold (M, g) we extend the definition of analytic and Reidemeister torsion associated to a unitary representation of ₁ (M) on a finite dimensional vector space to a representation on aA-Hilbert moduleW of finite type whereA is a finite von Neumann algebra. If (M,W) is of determinant class we prove, generalizing the Cheeger-Müller theorem, that the analytic and Reidemeister torsion are equal. In particular, this proves the conjecture that for closed Riemannian manifolds with positive Novikov-Shubin invariants, theL ₂-analytic andL ₂-Reidemeister torsions are equal.The first three authors were supported by NSF. The first two authors wish to thank the Erwin-Schrödinger-Institute, Vienna, for hospitality and support during the summer of 1993 when part of this work was done.     

On the magnitude of spheres,surfaces and other homogeneous spaces

In this paper we calculate the magnitude of metric spaces using measures rather than finite subsets as had been done previously. An explicit formula for the magnitude of an $n$ -sphere with its intrinsic metric is given. For an arbitrary homogeneous Riemannian manifold the leading terms of the asymptotic expansion of the magnitude are calculated and expressed in terms of the volume and total scalar curvature of the manifold.