Octahedral norms in free Banach lattices (Q2211157)

The free Banach lattice generated by just a set was introduced by \textit{B. de Pagter} and \textit{A. W. Wickstead} [Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., Sect. A, Math. 145, No. 1, 105--143 (2015; Zbl 1325.46020)]. A couple of years later, free Banach lattices generated by Banach spaces were introduced by \textit{A. Avilés} et al. [J. Funct. Anal. 274, No. 10, 2955--2977 (2018; Zbl 1400.46015)]. Let \(X\) be a Banach space and denote by \(FBL[X]\) the free Banach lattice generated by \(X\). In the paper under review, the authors investigate sufficient conditions on \(X\) to assure that the norm of \(FBL[X]\) is octahedral. Recall that a Banach space \(X\) has an octahedral norm if, for every finite-dimensional subspace \(E\) of \(X\) and for every \(\varepsilon>0\), there is a \(y\in X\) with norm one such that \[ \|x+\lambda y\|\geq (1-\varepsilon)(\|x\|+|\lambda|) \] for every \(x\in E\) and \(\lambda\in \mathbb{R}\). The main results of the paper say that the \(FBL[X]\) is octahedral whenever the Cunningham algebra \(C(X^{(\infty})\) is infinite-dimensional (e.g., \(X\) is \(L\)-embedded) or \(X^{\ast}\) is almost square. The paper ends by pointing out a couple of interesting open questions.