The distortion problem (Q1343834)

An infinite dimensional Banach space \((X,|\cdot|)\) is said to be distortable if there exists an equivalent norm \(|\cdot|\) on \(X\) and \(\lambda>1\) such that for all infinite dimensional subspaces \(Y\) of \(X\) \[ \sup\{ |y|/ |z|:\;y,z\in S(Y;|\cdot|) \}>\lambda, \tag{1} \] where \(S(Y,|\cdot|)\) is the unit sphere of \(Y\). It is known (R. C. James, 1964) that the spaces \(\ell_s\) and \(c_0\) are not distortable. By V. Milman, 1971, if \(X\) does not contain \(c_0\) or \(\ell_p\) \((1\leq p< \infty)\) then some subspace of \(X\) admits a distorted norm. Thus the general distortion problem (does a given \(X\) contain a distortable subspace?) reduces to the case \(X= \ell_p\) \((1<p <\infty)\). In this paper the authors prove that for every \(1<p <\infty\), \(\ell_p\) is arbitrarily distortable (i.e. for every \(\lambda>1\) there exists an equivalent norm on \(\ell_p\) satisfying (1)).