Gowers-Maurey's space and its conjugate space (Q1365357)

Recently, W. T. Gowers and B. Maurey constructed the first example of a Banach space containing no unconditional basic sequence. This space, which is denoted by \(X_G\) is reflexive and also hereditarily indecomposable (H.I.), i.e. no closed infinite-dimensional subspace is expressible as a topological direct sum of two closed infinite-dimensional subspaces. A Banach space \(X\) that cannot be represented as the sum of two closed infinite codimensional subspaces is called incompoundable. If every infinite-dimensional quotient space of \(X\) is incompoundable, then \(X\) is said to be quotient-hereditarily incompoundable (Q.H.I\(_C\)). The author shows (Theorem 1) that (a) If \(X^*\) is an H.I. space, then \(X\) is a Q.H.I\(_C\) space, and (b) if \(X^*\) is a Q.H.I\(_C\) space then \(X\) is an H.I. space. Thus \(X^*_G\) is Q.H.I\(_C\). As a corollary, the unsolved question as to whether every infinite-dimensional Banach space is compoundable is answered negatively [see \textit{W. J. Davis}, \textit{D. W. Dean} and \textit{B.-L. Lin}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 176, 89-102 (1973; Zbl 0255.46010) and \textit{I. Singer}, J. Funct. Anal. 13, 223-232 (1973; Zbl 0271.46012)]. Other results obtained include the following: 1. If \(X\) is a complex Q.H.I\(_C\) space, then every bounded linear operator on \(X\) is the sum of a scalar operator and a strictly cosingular operator. 2. If \(X\) is an H.I. or Q.H.I\(_C\), space then the Riesz operators form a maximal nontrivial ideal in the Banach algebra \(B(X)\) coinciding with the class of strictly singular or strictly cosingular operators respectively.