The Normal Homogeneous Space Su(3) So(3) /U•(2) × Has Positive Sectional Curvature
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 127, Number 4, April 1999, Pages 1191{1194 S 0002-9939(99)04613-4 THE NORMAL HOMOGENEOUS SPACE SU(3) SO(3) =U•(2) × HAS POSITIVE SECTIONAL CURVATURE BURKHARD WILKING (Communicated by Christopher Croke) Abstract. We give a new description of the positively curved seven-dimen- 7 7 sional Aloff-Wallach spaces Mkl. In particular, this description exhibits M11 as a normal homogeneous space, although it does not occur in Berger’s classi- fication (1961). A theorem of Berger [1961] states that a simply connected, normal homogeneous space of positive sectional curvature is either diffeomorphic to a compact rank-one n n 2 symmetric space, Sn, CP , HP ,CaP, or to one of the two following exceptional spaces: 1.) V := Sp(2)=SU(2), where the Lie algebra su(2) sp(2) is given by 1 ⊂ 3 i 0 0 1 √3 0 1 √3 i span 2 ; 2 ; 2 : R 0 1 i 1 √3 j 1 √3 ik 2 − 2 2 2.) V2 := SU(5)=H, where the group H is given by zA 0 1 H := 4 ASp(2) SU(4) ;z S C U(4) SU(5): 0¯z ∈ ⊂ ∈ ⊂ ⊂ ⊂ In particular H is isomorphic to Sp(2) S1 = (id; 1) . × {± } Here normal homogeneous means that the metrics on V and V are induced from 1 2 biinvariant metrics on Sp(2) and SU(5), respectively. This theorem is not correct. We will show that there is a third exception: 3.) V3 := SU(3) SO(3) =U•(2), where U•(2) is the image under the embedding (ι, π): U(2) , ×SU(3) SO(3) given by the natural inclusion → × A 0 ι(A):= 1 for A U(2) 0detA− ∈ 1 1 and the projection π : U(2) U(2)=S ∼= SO(3); here S U(2) denotes the center of U(2).