Homogeneous spaces with two equivalent isotropy summands develop positive Ricci curvature under Ricci flow

Abstract

We study normalized Ricci flow on simply connected homogeneous spaces G/H for which the isotropy representation splits into exactly two equivalent irreducible subrepresentations. We prove that every G-invariant metric evolves to one with positive Ricci curvature, and that the family of G-invariant metrics with positive Ricci curvature is forward-invariant under the flow. The proof relies on the fact that the phase portrait of the family of fixed-volume G-invariant metrics can be explicitly visualized.