Motivated by Altshuler’s famous characterization of the unit vector basis of $c_0$ or $\ell _p$ among symmetric bases (Altshuler [1976, Israel Journal of Mathematics, 24, 39–44]), we obtain similar characterizations among democratic bases and among bidemocratic bases. We also prove a separate characterization of the unit vector basis of $\ell _1$.

For $1\le p <\infty $ , we present a reflexive Banach space $\mathfrak {X}^{(p)}_{\text {awi}}$ , with an unconditional basis, that admits $\ell _p$ as a unique asymptotic model and does not contain any Asymptotic $\ell _p$ subspaces. Freeman et al., Trans. AMS. 370 (2018), 6933–6953 have shown that whenever a Banach space not containing $\ell _1$ , in particular a reflexive Banach space, admits $c_0$ as a unique asymptotic model, then it is Asymptotic $c_0$ . These results provide a complete answer to a problem posed by Halbeisen and Odell [Isr. J. Math. 139 (2004), 253–291] and also complete a line of inquiry of the relation between specific asymptotic structures in Banach spaces, initiated in a previous paper by the first and fourth authors. For the definition of $\mathfrak {X}^{(p)}_{\text {awi}}$ , we use saturation with asymptotically weakly incomparable constraints, a new method for defining a norm that remains small on a well-founded tree of vectors which penetrates any infinite dimensional closed subspace.

The classical Banach space $L_1(L_p)$ consists of measurable scalar functions f on the unit square for which

$$ \begin{align*}\|f\| = \int_0^1\Big(\int_0^1 |f(x,y)|^p dy\Big)^{1/p}dx < \infty.\end{align*} $$

We show that $L_1(L_p) (1 < p < \infty )$ is primary, meaning that whenever $L_1(L_p) = E\oplus F$ , where E and F are closed subspaces of $L_1(L_p)$ , then either E or F is isomorphic to $L_1(L_p)$ . More generally, we show that $L_1(X)$ is primary for a large class of rearrangement-invariant Banach function spaces.

In this paper we consider the following problem: let Xk, be a Banach space with a normalised basis (e(k, j))j, whose biorthogonals are denoted by ${(e_{(k,j)}^*)_j}$ , for $k\in\N$ , let $Z=\ell^\infty(X_k:k\kin\N)$ be their l∞-sum, and let $T:Z\to Z$ be a bounded linear operator with a large diagonal, i.e.,

$$\begin{align*}\inf_{k,j} \big|e^*_{(k,j)}(T(e_{(k,j)})\big|>0.\end{align*}$$

We obtain an equivalent implicit characterization of Lp Banach spaces that is amenable to a logical treatment. Using that, we obtain an axiomatization for such spaces into a higher order logical system, the kind of which is used in proof mining, a research program that aims to obtain the hidden computational content of mathematical proofs using tools from mathematical logic. As an aside, we obtain a concrete way of formalizing Lp spaces in positive-bounded logic. The axiomatization is followed by a corresponding metatheorem in the style of proof mining. We illustrate its use with the derivation for this class of spaces of the standard modulus of uniform convexity.

We study the Bishop-Phelps-Bollobàs property $\left( \text{BPBp} \right)$ for compact operators. We present some abstract techniques that allow us to carry the $\text{BPBp}$ for compact operators from sequence spaces to function spaces. As main applications, we prove the following results. Let $X$ and $Y$ be Banach spaces. If $\left( {{c}_{0}},Y \right)$ has the $\text{BPBp}$ for compact operators, then so do $\left( {{C}_{0}}\left( L \right),Y \right)$ for every locally compact Hausdorff topological space $L$ and $\left( X,\,Y \right)$ whenever ${{X}^{*}}$ is isometrically isomorphic to ${{\ell }_{1}}$. If ${{X}^{*}}$ has the Radon-Nikodým property and $\left( {{\ell }_{1}}\left( X \right),\,Y \right)$ has the $\text{BPBp}$ for compact operators, then so does $\left( {{L}_{1}}\left( \mu ,X \right),\,\,Y \right)$ for every positive measure $\mu $; as a consequence, $\left( {{L}_{1}}\left( \mu ,X \right),\,\,Y \right)$ has the $\text{BPBp}$ for compact operators when $X$ and $Y$ are finite-dimensional or $Y$ is a Hilbert space and $X={{c}_{0}}$ or $X={{L}_{p}}\left( v \right)$ for any positive measure $v$ and $1\,<\,p\,<\,\infty $. For $1\,\le p\,<\,\infty$, if $\left( X,{{l}_{p}}(Y) \right)$ has the $\text{BPBp}$ for compact operators, then so does $\left( X,{{L}_{p}}\left( \mu ,\,Y \right) \right)$ for every positive measure $\mu $ such that ${{L}_{1}}\left( \mu \right)$ is infinite-dimensional. If $\left( X,\,Y \right)$ has the $\text{BPBp}$ for compact operators, then so do $\left( X,\,{{L}_{\infty }}\left( \mu ,\,\,Y \right) \right)$ for every $\sigma $-finite positive measure $\mu $ and $\left( X,\,C\left( K,\,Y \right) \right)$ for every compact Hausdorff topological space $K$.

For every $p\in (0,\infty )$ we associate to every metric space $(X,d_{X})$ a numerical invariant $\mathfrak{X}_{p}(X)\in [0,\infty ]$ such that if $\mathfrak{X}_{p}(X)<\infty$ and a metric space $(Y,d_{Y})$ admits a bi-Lipschitz embedding into $X$ then also $\mathfrak{X}_{p}(Y)<\infty$ . We prove that if $p,q\in (2,\infty )$ satisfy $q<p$ then $\mathfrak{X}_{p}(L_{p})<\infty$ yet $\mathfrak{X}_{p}(L_{q})=\infty$ . Thus, our new bi-Lipschitz invariant certifies that $L_{q}$ does not admit a bi-Lipschitz embedding into $L_{p}$ when $2<q<p<\infty$ . This completes the long-standing search for bi-Lipschitz invariants that serve as an obstruction to the embeddability of $L_{p}$ spaces into each other, the previously understood cases of which were metric notions of type and cotype, which however fail to certify the nonembeddability of $L_{q}$ into $L_{p}$ when $2<q<p<\infty$ . Among the consequences of our results are new quantitative restrictions on the bi-Lipschitz embeddability into $L_{p}$ of snowflakes of $L_{q}$ and integer grids in $\ell _{q}^{n}$ , for $2<q<p<\infty$ . As a byproduct of our investigations, we also obtain results on the geometry of the Schatten $p$ trace class $S_{p}$ that are new even in the linear setting.

For Banach spaces $X$ and $Y$, we show that if ${{X}^{*}}$ and $Y$ are weakly sequentially complete and every weakly compact operator from $X$ to $Y$ is compact, then the space of all compact operators from $X$ to $Y$ is weakly sequentially complete. The converse is also true if, in addition, either ${{X}^{*}}$ or $Y$ has the bounded compact approximation property.

In this paper we study non-complemented spaces of operators and the embeddability of ℓ∞ in the spaces of operators L(X, Y), K(X, Y) and Kw*(X*, Y). Results of Bator and Lewis [2, 3] (Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci. Math.50(4) (2002), 413–416; Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci. Math.549(1) (2006), 63–73), Emmanuele [8–10] (J. Funct. Anal.99 (1991), 125–130; Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc.111 (1992), 331–335; Atti. Sem. Mat. Fis. Univ. Modena42(1) (1994), 123–133), Feder [11] (Canad. Math. Bull.25 (1982), 78–81) and Kalton [16] (Math. Ann.208 (1974), 267–278), are generalised. A vector measure result is used to study the complementation of the spaces W(X, Y) and K(X, Y) in the space L(X, Y), as well as the complementation of K(X, Y) in W(X, Y). A fundamental result of Drewnowski [7] (Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 108 (1990), 523–526) is used to establish a result for operator-valued measures, from which we obtain as corollaries the Vitali–Hahn–Saks–Nikodym theorem, the Nikodym Boundedness theorem and a Banach space version of the Phillips Lemma.

In this paper we present some results about $wV$ (weak property $V$ of Peł czyński) or property $wV^*$ (weak property $V^*$ of Peł czyński) in Banach spaces. We show that $E$ has property $wV$ if for any reflexive subspace $F$ of $E^*$, $^{\perp} {F}$ has property $wV$. It is shown that $G$ has property $wV$ if under some condition $K_{w^*}(E^*, F^*)$ contains the dual of $G$. Moreover, it is proved that $E^*$ contains a copy of $c_0$ if and only if $E$ contains a copy of $\ell_1$ where $E$ has property $wV^*$. Finally, the identity between $L(C(\Omega, E), F)$ and $WP(C(\Omega, E), F)$ is investigated.

A class of operators is introduced on $L_1$ that is stable under taking sums of pointwise unconditionally convergent series, contains all compact operators and does not contain isomorphic embeddings. It follows that any operator from $L_1$ into a space with an unconditional basis belongs to this class.

This note improves two previous results of the second author. They turn out to be special cases of our main theorem which states: A Banach space X has the property that the strong closure of every abstractly σ-complete Boolean algebra of projections in X is Bade complete if and only if X does not contain a copy of the sequence space ℓ∞.

Let K be a compact Hausdorff space and C(K) the Banach space of all real-valued continuous functions on K, with the sup norm. Types over C(K) (in the sense of Krivine and Maurey) are represented here by pairs (l, u) of bounded real-valued functions on K, where l is lower semicontinuous and u is upper semicontinuous, l ≤ u and l(x) = u(x) for every isolated point x of K. For each pair the corresponding type is defined by the equation τ(g) = max{║l + g║∞, ║u + g║∞} for all g ∈ C(K), where ║·║∞ is the sup norm on bounded functions. The correspondence between types and pairs (l, u) is bijective.

In this paper we show that the Lorentz space Lw, 1(0, ∞) has the weak-star uniform Kadec-Klee property if and only if inft>0 (w(αt)/w(t)) > 1 and supt>0(φ(αt) / φ(t))< 1 for all α ∈ (0, 1), where φ(t) = ∫t0 w(s) ds.

The non-separable Banach space of right continuous functions with left hand limits and the supremum norm is investigated to find the isomorphic types of complemented subspaces. It is shown that every isometric isomorph of c0 is complemented in this space which may be identified as a non-separable C(K) space. Sufficient conditions are given for other isomorphs of C0 to be complemented in the space and the complement of a C0 subspace is characterized isomorphically.

Let X and Y be Banach spaces, L(X, Y) the space of bounded linear operators from X to Y and C(X, Y) its subspace of the compact operators. A sequence {Ti} in C(X, Y) is said to be an unconditional compact expansion of T ∈ L (X, Y) if ∑ Tix converges unconditionally to Tx for every x ∈ X. We prove: (1) If there exists a non-compact T ∈ L(X, Y) admitting an unconditional compact expansion then C(X, Y) is not complemented in L(X, Y), and (2) Let X and Y be classical Banach spaces (i.e. spaces whose duals are some LP(μ) spaces) then either L(X, Y) = C(X, Y) or C(X, Y) is not complemented in L(X, Y).