Descriptive theory of nearest points in Banach spaces (Q1928873)

For a real Banach space \((X,\|\cdot\|)\), a fixed closed subspace \(Y\) and \(x\in X,\) let \(d(x,Y)=\inf_{y\in Y}\|x-y\|\) be the distance from \(x\) to \(Y\). The set \(P(Y,\|\cdot\|)\) of all points in \( X\) having a nearest point in \(Y\) is the projection on \(X\) of the closed subset \(\{(x,y)\in X\times Y : \|x-y\|=d(x,Y)\}\) of \(X\times Y\), and so it is an analytic set. The author proves a converse of this result in the case when \(X\) is separable: if \(\mathbf{A}\) is an analytic subset of \(X\) such that \(Y\subset \mathbf{A}\), \(\mathbf{A}+Y=Y\) and \(t\mathbf{A}=\mathbf{A}\) for \(t\neq 0\), then there exists an equivalent norm \(\|\cdot\|_1\) on \(X\) such that \(P(Y,\|\cdot\|_1) = \mathbf{A}\). The proof is based on the existence of an equivalent locally uniformly rotund norm on \(X\) and on a result of Bartle-Graves on the existence of a continuous right inverse of the projection \(\pi\) of \(X\) onto \(X/Y\) (or equivalently, of a continuous selection for the set-valued inverse \(\pi^{-1}\)).