Ricci curvature and Einstein metrics on aligned homogeneous spaces

Let $M=G/K$ be a compact homogeneous space and assume that $G$ and $K$ have many simple factors. We show that the topological condition of having maximal third Betti number, in the sense that $b_3(M)=s-1$ if $G$ has $s$ simple factors, so called {\it aligned}, leads to a relatively manageable algebraic structure on the isotropy representation, paving the way to the computation of Ricci curvature formulas for a large class of $G$-invariant metrics. As an application, we study the existence and classification of Einstein metrics on aligned homogeneous spaces.