Embedding Levy families into Banach spaces (Q1601048)

Let \(T=\{(T_n, \mu_n,d_n)\}_{n\geq 1}\) be a family of probability metric spaces such that for every positive integer \(n\), every positive \(\varepsilon\) and every \(A\subset T_n\) with \(\mu_n(A)\geq 1/2\), one has \(\mu_n (A_\varepsilon)\geq 1-c_1 \exp(-c_2n \varepsilon^2)\), where \(A_\varepsilon= \{x \in T_n\mid d_n(x,A) \leq\varepsilon\}\) and \(c_1,c_2\) are positive absolute constants. Then \(T\) is called a normal Lévy family with constants \(c_1,c_2\). If there exist positive \(\varepsilon, \delta\) such that for every positive integer \(n\) and every \(x\in T_n\), one has \(\mu_n (A_\varepsilon)\leq 1-\delta\) where \(A=\{x\}\), then \(T\) is called regular. Normal Lévy families play an essential role in the asymptotic theory of finite dimensional spaces [see, e.g., \textit{V. Milman} and \textit{G. Schechtman} [Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 1200. Berlin, Springer (1986; Zbl 0606.46013)]. An important example of a Lévy family is the sequence of Euclidean spheres \(S^n\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) with the normalized Lebesgue measure and the geodesic distance. Other examples include sequences of orthogonal groups \(O_n\), homogeneous spaces of \(O_n\), powers of any probability metric space, all with natural measures and metrics. The authors study Lipschitz embeddings of normal Lévy families into Banach spaces. They prove many properties of such embeddings, in particular that if a member of a regular normal Lévy family can be embedded into an \(n\)-dimensional normed space \(X\), then \(X\) has an ``almost'' Euclidean subspace of a proportional dimension. This provides a new characterization of spaces with weak cotype 2. The authors consider also the case \(X=\ell_\infty\), obtaining lower estimates for the Lipschitz constants of such an embedding. This generalizes results by \textit{J. Bourgain}, \textit{J. Lindenstrauss} and \textit{V. Milman} [Acta Math. 162, 73-141 (1989; Zbl 0682.46008)], \textit{B. Carl} and \textit{A. Pajor} [Invent. Math. 94, 479-504 (1988; Zbl 0668.47014)], and \textit{E. D. Gluskin} [Math. USSR, Sb. 64, 85-96 (1989); translation from Mat. Sb., Nov. Ser. 136 (178), No. 1, 85-96 (1989; Zbl 0668.52002)].