Anosov automorphisms on compact nilmanifolds associated with graphs

We associate with each graph a -step simply connected nilpotent Lie group and a lattice in . We determine the group of Lie automorphisms of and apply the result to describe a necessary and sufficient condition, in terms of the graph, for the compact nilmanifold to admit an Anosov automorphism. Using the criterion we obtain new examples of compact nilmanifolds admitting Anosov automorphisms, and conclude that for every there exist a -dimensional -step simply connected nilpotent Lie group which is indecomposable (not a direct product of lower dimensional nilpotent Lie groups), and a lattice in such that admits an Anosov automorphism; we give also a lower bound on the number of mutually nonisomorphic Lie groups of a given dimension, satisfying the condition. Necessary and sufficient conditions are also described for a compact nilmanifold as above to admit ergodic automorphisms.