Sectional curvature of symmetric spaces of rank one is pinched

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In the Appendix 5 to Ballmann, Gromov and Schroeder's Manifolds of nonpositive curvature, Schroeder mentions that for a rank one symmetric space of noncompact type, $-1 \leq K \leq -\frac{1}{4}$ (possibly after rescaling the metric, of course) where $K$ is sectional curvature.

I was not able to find a reference for this fact, so if anyone knows one, that would be great. I would also be fine with a reference for the fact that the sectional curvature for a rank one symmetric space of compact type is $\frac{1}{4} \leq K \leq 1$.

I suppose since there's only a few families of noncompact type, rank one symmetric spaces, one could compute it case by case, but maybe there's a general proof someone could point me to. Thanks!

Best Answer

Good question. These results are surprisingly hard to find. (Books by Helgason and by Eberlein, which are standard references for geometry of symmetric spaces, do not contain the results.)

  1. For rank 1 compact symmetric spaces (CROSSes), quater-pinching is proven in

Chavel, Isaac, On Riemannian symmetric spaces of rank one, Adv. Math. 4, 236-263 (1970). ZBL0199.56403.

  1. For negatively curved symmetric spaces, quarter-pinching is proven in

Heintze, Ernst, On homogeneous manifolds of negative curvature, Math. Ann. 211, 23-34 (1974). ZBL0273.53042.

Most likely, one can find even earlier references (probably by sifting through papers by Elie Cartan.)

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