The Dirac operator on compact symmetric spaces

Abstract: Let G be a compact connected semisimple Lie group and let H\subset G be a closed connected subgroup such that rank(G)=rank(H) and G/H is a symmetric space. Given an irreducible representation of H, we define a Dirac operator D and determine the representations of G in the kernel of D. Moreover, we show that any irreducible representation of G can be constructed in this way. Our approach is similar to that of Parthasarathy.