Palais-Smale sequences for the prescribed Ricci curvature functional

Abstract: We obtain a complete description of divergent Palais-Smale sequences for the prescribed Ricci curvature functional on compact homogeneous spaces. As an application, we prove the existence of saddle points on generalized Wallach spaces and several types of generalized flag manifolds. We also describe the image of the Ricci map in some of our examples.