On the compactness of the set of invariant Einstein metrics

Let $M = G/H$ be a connected simply connected homogeneous manifold of a compact, not necessarily connected Lie group $G$. We will assume that the isotropy $H$-module $\mathfrak {g/h}$ has a simple spectrum, i.e. irreducible submodules are mutually non-equivalent. There exists a convex Newton polytope $N=N(G,H)$, which was used for the estimation of the number of isolated complex solutions of the algebraic Einstein equation for invariant metrics on $G/H$ (up to scaling). Using the moment map, we identify the space $\mathcal{M}_1$ of invariant Riemannian metrics of volume 1 on $G/H$ with the interior of this polytope $N$. We associate with a point ${x \in \partial N}$ of the boundary a homogeneous Riemannian space (in general, only local) and we extend the Einstein equation to $\bar{\mathcal{M}_1}= N$. As an application of the Aleksevsky--Kimel'fel'd theorem, we prove that all solutions of the Einstein equation associated with points of the boundary are locally Euclidean. We describe explicitly the set $T\subset \partial N$ of solutions at the boundary together with its natural triangulation. Investigating the compactification $\bar{\mathcal{M}_1}$ of $\mathcal{M}_1$, we get an algebraic proof of the deep result by B\"ohm, Wang and Ziller about the compactness of the set $\mathcal{E}_1 \subset \mathcal{M}_1$ of Einstein metrics. The original proof by B\"ohm, Wang and Ziller was based on a different approach and did not use the simplicity of the spectrum. In Appendix we consider the non-symmetric K\"ahler homogeneous spaces $G/H$ with the second Betti number $b_2=1$. We write the normalized volumes $2,6,20,82,344$ of the corresponding Newton polytopes and discuss the number of complex solutions of the algebraic Einstein equation and the finiteness problem.