Projecting \(l_{\infty}\) onto classical spaces (Q2272172)

In high-dimensional cross-polytopes, the existence of almost Euclidean sections of proportional dimension is a well-known fact; however, the proofs are all probabilistic. By duality, a high-dimensional cube can be linearly projected onto an almost Euclidean ball of proportional dimension, but the proof is not constructive. The present paper explicitly describes two constructions which help to fill this gap in our knowledge. One is a multilinear projection from the cube onto an almost Euclidean ball of proportional dimension. The other is a linear projection of a ``large'' symmetric subset of the cube onto an almost Euclidean ball of proportional dimension. In both cases, arbitrarily close copies of \(\ell_p\) balls can also be the images of such projections, provided that \(1<p<\infty\). The constructions are modifications of earlier work of \textit{A.\,Ben-Tal} and \textit{A.\,Nemirowski} [Math.\ Oper.\ Res.\ 26, No.\,2, 193--205 (2001; Zbl 1082.90133)], who proved without statement that almost Euclidean balls arise as projections of sections of a simplex of proportionally higher dimension.