Einstein solvmanifolds with a simple Einstein derivation

The structure of a solvable Lie group admitting an Einstein left-invariant metric is, in a sense, completely determined by the nilradical of its Lie algebra. We give an easy-to-check necessary and sufficient condition for a nilpotent algebra to be an Einstein nilradical whose Einstein derivation has simple eigenvalues. As an application, we classify filiform Einstein nilradicals (modulo known classification results on filiform graded Lie algebras).