On non-Archimedean Hilbertian spaces (Q735427)

Let \(K\) be a non-archimedean and non-trivially valued field that is complete with respect to the metric induced by its valuation. A non-archimedean normed space \(E\) over \(K\) is called Hilbertian if every one-dimensional subspace of \(E\) has an orthogonal complement in \(E\). If \(K\) is spherically complete, all normed spaces over \(K\) are Hilbertian and, for non-spherically complete \(K\), all examples of Hilbertian spaces known until the publication of the paper under review, had orthogonal bases. Hilbertian spaces have been studied, among others, by the reviewer jointly with W.H. Schikhof. In 1993 they formulated the following question. Problem. Does there exist a Hilbertian space over a non-spherically complete field \(K\) without an orthogonal base? The author of the present paper gives an affirmative answer to this problem. Indeed, he obtains a characterization of Hilbertian spaces spaces in terms of maximal orthogonal sets and immediate extensions, which leads him to conclude the following. Let \(E\) be a maximal immediate extension of \(c_0\) contained in \(\ell^{\infty}\). Then \(E\) is a Hilbertian space that has no orthogonal base. It is very pleasant news to this reviewer to know that the the above problem has finally been solved!