Transverse Spheres in Flag Manifolds

Abstract

For some partial flag manifolds of semisimple real Lie groups, including many full flag manifolds, transverse circles are known to be locally maximally transverse. We complete the classification of all partial flag manifolds of split real Lie groups with this property. As a consequence, $\{7\}$-Anosov subgroups of split $E_7$ are virtually free or surface groups. On the other hand, using spinors, we find transverse spheres of arbitrarily large dimension in certain full flag manifolds of Cartan-Killing types $A,B,D$. These transverse spheres are verified to be maximally transverse with tools from topological $K$-theory. The aforementioned classification follows from constructions of transverse $m$-spheres, $m \geq 2$, that complement the previously known restrictions as well as the new $E_7$ restriction. Additionally, when $G$ is split of type $G_2, B_3,$ or $D_4$, the full flag manifold admits a fibration by maximally transverse 3-spheres.