Operator spaces with few completely bounded maps (Q1423614)

In the famous paper [J. Am. Math. Soc. 6, 851--874 (1993; Zbl 0827.46008)], \textit{W. T. Gowers} and \textit{B. Maurey} constructed a Banach space such that every bounded operator on it is of the form \(\lambda I + S\), where \(S\) is a strictly singular operator, that is, the restriction of \(S\) to any infinite-dimensional subspace is never an isomorphism. This Banach space or any of its infinite-dimensional subspaces cannot be written as a direct sum of infinite-dimensional subspaces (i.e., it is hereditarily indecomposable) and has many other pathological properties. The present paper studies these types of questions and produces numerous examples in the setting of operator spaces. It shows that even on very nice Banach spaces, e.g., Hilbert spaces, there exist quite pathological operator space structures. The main result is the construction of an operator space structure \(X\) on \(\ell^2\) such that every completely bounded linear map is of the form \(\lambda I + S\), where \(S\) is a Hilbert-Schmidt operator. In fact, the authors prove that this is true for any completely bounded map on a subquotient of \(X\). Moreover, any such subquotient does not have the operator space approximation property (OAP), i.e., the analogue of Grothendieck's approximation property. The authors also construct operator space structures without the OAP on arbitrary Banach spaces, study examples related to the compact operator space approximation property, completely unconditional bases, the Schroeder-Bernstein property for operator spaces and the OAP for dual operator spaces which, as they show, does not imply the CBAP.