This article introduces the Clairaut conformal Riemannian map. This notion includes the previously studied notions of Clairaut conformal submersion, Clairaut Riemannian submersion, and the Clairaut Riemannian map as particular cases, and is well known in the classical theory of surfaces. Toward this, we find the necessary and sufficient condition for a conformal Riemannian map $\varphi : M \to N$ between Riemannian manifolds to be a Clairaut conformal Riemannian map with girth $s = e^f$. We show that the fibers of $\varphi $ are totally umbilical with mean curvature vector field the negative gradient of the logarithm of the girth function, that is, $-\nabla f$. Using this, we obtain a local splitting of M as a warped product and a usual product, if the horizontal space is integrable (under some appropriate hypothesis). We also provide some examples of the Clairaut conformal Riemannian maps to confirm our main theorem. We observe that the Laplacian of the logarithmic girth, that is, of f, on the total manifold takes the special form. It reduces to the Laplacian on the horizontal distribution, and if it is nonnegative, the universal covering space of M becomes a product manifold, under some hypothesis on f. Analysis of the Laplacian of f also yields the splitting of the universal covering space of M as a warped product under some appropriate conditions. We calculate the sectional curvature and mixed sectional curvature of M when f is a distance function. We also find the relationships between the total manifold and the fibers being symmetrical and, in particular, having constant sectional curvature, and from there, we compare their universal covering spaces, if fibers are also complete, provided f is a distance function. We also find a condition on the curvature tensor of the fibers to be semi-symmetric, provided that the total manifold is semi-symmetric and f is a distance function. In turn, this gives the warped product of symmetric, semi-symmetric spaces into two symmetric, semi-symmetric subspaces (under some hypothesis). Also if the Hessian or the Laplacian of the Riemannian curvature tensor fields is zero, or has a harmonic curvature tensor, then the fibers of $\varphi $ also satisfy the same property, if f is also a distance function. By obtaining Bochner-type formulas for Clairaut conformal Riemannian maps, we establish the relations between the divergences of the Ricci curvature tensor on fibers and horizontal space and the corresponding scalar curvature. We also study the horizontal Killing vector field of constant length and show that they are parallel under appropriate hypotheses. This in turn gives the splitting of the total manifold, if it admits a horizontal parallel Killing vector field and if the horizontal space is integrable. Finally, assuming that $\nabla f$ is a nontrivial gradient Ricci soliton on M, we prove that any vertical vector field is incompressible and hence the volume form of the fiber is invariant under the flow of the vector field.

We construct inhomogeneous isoparametric families of hypersurfaces with non-austere focal set on each symmetric space of non-compact type and rank ${\geq }3$. If the rank is ${\geq }4$, there are infinitely many such examples. Our construction yields the first examples of isoparametric families on any Riemannian manifold known to have a non-austere focal set. They can be obtained from a new general extension method of submanifolds from Euclidean spaces to symmetric spaces of non-compact type. This method preserves the mean curvature and isoparametricity, among other geometric properties.

We explicitly determine the defining relations of all quantum symmetric pair coideal subalgebras of quantised enveloping algebras of Kac–Moody type. Our methods are based on star products on noncommutative ${\mathbb N}$-graded algebras. The resulting defining relations are expressed in terms of continuous q-Hermite polynomials and a new family of deformed Chebyshev polynomials.

A Willmore surface $y:M\rightarrow S^{n+2}$ has a natural harmonic oriented conformal Gauss map $Gr_{y}:M\rightarrow SO^{+}(1,n+3)/SO(1,3)\times SO(n)$, which maps each point $p\in M$ to its oriented mean curvature 2-sphere at $p$. An easy observation shows that all conformal Gauss maps of Willmore surfaces satisfy a restricted nilpotency condition, which will be called “strongly conformally harmonic.” The goal of this paper is to characterize those strongly conformally harmonic maps from a Riemann surface $M$ to $SO^{+}(1,n+3)/SO^{+}(1,3)\times SO(n)$, which are the conformal Gauss maps of some Willmore surface in $S^{n+2}.$ It turns out that generically, the condition of being strongly conformally harmonic suffices to be associated with a Willmore surface. The exceptional case will also be discussed.

In this paper we study topological properties of the right action by translation of the Weyl chamber flow on the space of Weyl chambers. We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for topological mixing.

In this article, we study compactifications of homogeneous spaces coming from equivariant, open embeddings into a generalized flag manifold $G/P$. The key to this approach is that in each case $G/P$ is the homogeneous model for a parabolic geometry; the theory of such geometries provides a large supply of geometric tools and invariant differential operators that can be used for this study. A classical theorem of Wolf shows that any involutive automorphism of a semisimple Lie group $G$ with fixed point group $H$ gives rise to a large family of such compactifications of homogeneous spaces of $H$. Most examples of (classical) Riemannian symmetric spaces as well as many non-symmetric examples arise in this way. A specific feature of the approach is that any compactification of that type comes with the notion of ‘curved analog’ to which the tools we develop also apply. The model example of this is a general Poincaré–Einstein manifold forming the curved analog of the conformal compactification of hyperbolic space. In the first part of the article, we derive general tools for the analysis of such compactifications. In the second part, we analyze two families of examples in detail, which in particular contain compactifications of the symmetric spaces $\mathit{SL}(n,\mathbb{R})/\mathit{SO}(p,n-p)$ and $\mathit{SO}(n,\mathbb{C})/\mathit{SO}(n)$. We describe the decomposition of the compactification into orbits, show how orbit closures can be described as the zero sets of smooth solutions to certain invariant differential operators and prove a local slice theorem around each orbit in these examples.

Let $Q$ be a closed manifold admitting a locally free action of a compact Lie group $G$. In this paper, we study the properties of geodesic flows on $Q$ given by suitable G-invariant Riemannian metrics. In particular, we will be interested in the existence of geodesics that are closed up to the action of some element in the group $G$, since they project to closed magnetic geodesics on the quotient orbifold $Q/G$.

We establish rigidity (or uniqueness) theorems for non-commutative (NC) automorphisms that are natural extensions of classical results of H. Cartan and are improvements of recent results. We apply our results to NC domains consisting of unit balls of rectangular matrices.

We prove that all convolution products of pairs of continuous orbital measures in rank one, compact symmetric spaces are absolutely continuous and determine which convolution products are in $L^{2}$ (meaning that their density function is in $L^{2}$). We characterise the pairs whose convolution product is either absolutely continuous or in $L^{2}$ in terms of the dimensions of the corresponding double cosets. In particular, we prove that if $G/K$ is not $\text{SU}(2)/\text{SO}(2)$, then the convolution of any two regular orbital measures is in $L^{2}$, while in $\text{SU}(2)/\text{SO}(2)$ there are no pairs of orbital measures whose convolution product is in $L^{2}$.

For a compact simply connected simple Lie group G with an involution α, we compute the G ⋊ ℤ/2-equivariant K-theory of G where G acts by conjugation and ℤ/2 acts either by α or by g ↦ α(g)−1. We also give a representation-theoretic interpretation of those groups, as well as of KG(G).

We describe all centrioles in irreducible simply connected pointed symmetric spaces of compact type in terms of the root system of the ambient space, and we study some geometric properties of centrioles.

The squared distance curvature is a kind of two-point curvature the sign of which turned out to be crucial for the smoothness of optimal transportation maps on Riemannian manifolds. Positivity properties of that new curvature have been established recently for all the simply connected compact rank one symmetric spaces, except the Cayley plane. Direct proofs were given for the sphere, and an indirect one (via the Hopf fibrations) for the complex and quaternionic projective spaces. Here, we present a direct proof of a property implying all the preceding ones, valid on every positively curved Riemannian locally symmetric space.

A complex hyperbolic triangle group is a group generated by three involutions fixing complex lines in complex hyperbolic space. Our purpose in this paper is to improve a previous result and to discuss discreteness of complex hyperbolic triangle groups of type $(n,\,n,\,\infty ;\,k)$.

We prove that an algebraic subvariety of a Shimura variety is weakly special if and only if analytic components of its preimage in the symmetric space are algebraic. We also prove an analogous result in the case of abelian varieties.

Let G/K be a noncompact symmetric space, Gc/K its compact dual, 𝔤=𝔨⊕𝔭 the Cartan decomposition of the Lie algebra 𝔤 of G, 𝔞 a maximal abelian subspace of 𝔭, H be an element of 𝔞, a=exp (H) , and ac =exp (iH) . In this paper, we prove that if for some positive integer r, νrac is absolutely continuous with respect to the Haar measure on Gc, then νra is absolutely continuous with respect to the left Haar measure on G, where νac (respectively νa) is the K-bi-invariant orbital measure supported on the double coset KacK (respectively KaK). We also generalize a result of Gupta and Hare [‘Singular dichotomy for orbital measures on complex groups’, Boll. Unione Mat. Ital. (9) III (2010), 409–419] to general noncompact symmetric spaces and transfer many of their results from compact symmetric spaces to their dual noncompact symmetric spaces.

We study homogeneous Kähler structures on a non-compact Hermitian symmetric space and their lifts to homogeneous Sasakian structures on the total space of a principal line bundle over it, and we analyse the case of the complex hyperbolic space.

We prove that in any compact symmetric space, G/K, there is a dense set of a1,a2∈G such that if μj=mK*δaj*mk is the K-bi-invariant measure supported on KajK, then μ1*μ2 is absolutely continuous with respect to Haar measure on G. Moreover, the product of double cosets, Ka1Ka2K, has nonempty interior in G.

We derive upper Gaussian bounds for the heat kernel on complete, noncompact locally symmetric spaces M=Γ∖X with nonpositive curvature. Our bounds contain the Poincaré series of the discrete group Γ and therefore we also provide upper bounds for this series.

Let H be the n-dimensional hyperbolic space of constant sectional curvature –1 and let G be the identity component of the isometry group of H. We find all the G-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metrics on the space of oriented geodesics of H (modulo orientation preserving reparametrizations). We characterize the null, time- and space-like curves, providing a relationship between the geometries of and H. Moreover, we show that is Kähler and find an orthogonal almost complex structure on .

Real flag manifolds are the isotropy orbits of noncompact symmetric spaces $G/K$. Any such manifold $M$ is acted on transitively by the (noncompact) Lie group $G$, and it is embedded in euclidean space as a taut submanifold. The aim of this paper is to show that the gradient flow of any height function is a one-parameter subgroup of $G$, where the gradient is defined with respect to a suitable homogeneous metric $s$ on $M$; this generalizes the Kähler metric on adjoint orbits (the so-called complex flag manifolds).