Extendibility of bilinear forms on Banach sequence spaces (Q2017147)

Let \(X\) and \(Y\) be Banach spaces over a scalar field \({\mathbb {K}}\). A continuous bilinear form \(T:X \times Y \to {\mathbb {K}}\) is said to be extendible if, for all Banach spaces \(E \supset X\) and \(F \supset Y,\) there is a continuous bilinear form \(E \times F \to {\mathbb {K}}\) that extends \(T\). The authors' interest is in describing those spaces that have such a bilinear (or multilinear) Hahn-Banach theorem (albeit without the norm being preserving). The main result is the following: Let \(X\) be a Banach space with unconditional basis such that, for any infinite-dimensional Banach space \(Y\), every bilinear form \(X \times Y \to {\mathbb {K}}\) is extendible. Then \(X\) is isomorphic to \(c_0\). Further, the authors show that the only Banach sequence spaces \(X\) on which every bilinear form is extendible are those satisfying \(c_0 \subset X \subset \ell_\infty,\) and this occurs if and only if the Köthe dual of \(X\) is \(\ell_1\). The techniques of proof in this interesting paper include a sharpening of a result in [\textit{H. Jarchow} et al., J. Math. Anal. Appl. 336, No. 2, 1161--1177 (2007; Zbl 1161.46025)] and the use of various topics from \textit{A. Defant} and \textit{K. Floret} [Tensor norms and operator ideals. Amsterdam: North-Holland (1993; Zbl 0774.46018)].