On Einstein extensions of nilpotent metric Lie algebras

The main result of the article is as follows: If a nilpotent noncommutative metric Lie algebra (n, Q) is such that the operator Id ? trace(Ric) / trace(Ric²) Ric is positive definite then every Einstein solvable extension of (n, Q) is standard. We deduce several consequences of this assertion. In particular, we prove that all Einstein solvmanifolds of dimension at most 7 are standard.