Almost minimal orthogonal projections (Q2048865)

This paper makes a significant contribution to the problem of finding the maximum projection constant for the class of Banach spaces of a given finite dimension. More precisely, for any integer \(n\) and \(\varepsilon>0\), it shows that there is an integer \(d>n\) and an \(n\)-dimensional subspace of \(\mathbb{R}^d\) (equipped with the \(\ell_1\) norm) whose relative projection constant is almost maximal (i.e., within \(\varepsilon\) of the maximum). Moreover, the orthogonal projection (with respect to a suitable orthonormal basis of \(\mathbb{R}^d\)) onto this subspace has almost minimal norm.