Some remarks on smooth renormings of Banach spaces (Q2014094)

The approximation of norms on Banach spaces by \(C^k\)-smooth norms is a delicate issue, and to this day it is not known if the existence of a \(C^1\)-smooth equivalent norm on a Banach space \(X\) implies that every equivalent norm can be approximated uniformly on bounded sets by \(C^1\)-smooth norms. This is known, however, for separable Banach spaces \(X\), and recently it was shown in full generality by \textit{P. Hájek} and \textit{J. Talponen} [Q. J. Math. 65, No. 3, 957--969 (2014; Zbl 1315.46009)] that, in the separable frame, \(C^k\)-approximation also works when \(k>1\). The present work provides a quantitative improvement of this result for separable Banach spaces with a basis. Precisely, it is shown that a \(C^k\)-smooth approximating norm exists such that the approximation is arbitrarily good on the tails of the basis. In other words, the constructed \(C^k\)-smooth norm has the same asymptotic structure as the original norm. This interesting result could bear consequences on isometric or quasi-isometric questions, such as fixed point problems.