The Steiner subratio in Banach spaces (Q2282851)

The author studies a combinatorial invariant of Banach spaces. For a given Banach space $X$ let $M$ be a finite subset of the space. Let $\Gamma$ denote a graph that has $M$ as its vertices and that connects all vertices. We compute now the sum of the length of all edges of $\Gamma$ and let \[ |\operatorname{smt}|(M,X)=\inf_{\Gamma}\{\text{sum of lengths of all edges of }\Gamma\}. \] For a finite metric space $M$ the length of a minimal filling for $M$ is \[ |\operatorname{mf}|(M)=\inf\{|\operatorname{smt}|(M,X)\mid X\text{ Banach space},\ \phi:M\to X \text{ isometry}\} \] The Steiner subratio of a Banach space $X$ is \[ \operatorname{ssr}(X)=\inf\left\{\left.\frac{|\operatorname{mf}|(M)}{|\operatorname{smt}|(M,X)}\right| M \text{ is a finite nonsingleton subset of } X\right\} \] and the Steiner subratio of a Banach space $X$ for $n$ points is $\operatorname{ssr}_{n}(X)$ where $M$ is required to have only $n$ points. Furthermore $\operatorname{ssr}_{n}$ is the infimum of $\operatorname{ssr}_{n}(X)$ over all Banach spaces $X$. The author proves $\operatorname{ssr}_{n}=\frac{n}{2(n-1)}$ and that there is a Banach space for which the infimum is attained.