On the volume of orbifold quotients of symmetric spaces

Key to H. C. Wang's quantitative study of Zassenhaus neighbourhoods of non-compact semisimple Lie groups are two constants that depend on the root system of the corresponding Lie algebra. This article extends the list of values for Wang's constants to the exceptional Lie groups and also removes their dependence on dimension. The first application is an improved upper sectional curvature bound for a canonical left-invariant metric on a semisimple Lie group. The second application is an explicit uniform positive lower bound for arbitrary orbifold quotients of a given irreducible symmetric space of non-compact type.