Linear expand-contract plasticity of ellipsoids in separable Hilbert spaces (Q2323009)

The paper under review deals with expand-contract plasticity in Hilbert spaces. Let \(M\) be a metric space. A map \(f:M\to M\) is said to be non-expansive if \(d(f(x),f(y))\leq d(x,y)\) holds for every pair of different points \(x,y\in M\). The metric space \(M\) is said to be expand-contract plastic (EC-plastic in short) if every non-expansive bijection \(f:M\to M\) is an isometry. It is well known that every compact metric space is EC-plastic, hence so are all the solid subsets of finite-dimensional Banach spaces. However, the question in the infinite-dimensional case is not trivial at all, as shows the existence of non EC-plastic ellipsoids in \(\ell_2\). Recall that an ellipsoid in \(\ell_2\) is a set of the following form \[ E:=\left \{x=(x_n)\in\ell_2: \sum_{n\in\mathbb N}\left\vert \frac{x_n}{a_n} \right\vert^2\leq 1\right\},\tag{1} \] where \(\{a_n\}\) is a sequence of positive numbers. This example motivates the author to define the linear expand-contract plasticity. Given a subset \(M\) of a normed space \(X\), it is said that \(M\) is linearly expand-contract plastic (LEC-plastic) if every linear operator \(T:X\to X\), whose restriction to \(M\) is a non-expansive bijection on \(M\), is an isometry on \(M\). With this definition in mind, the paper under review characterises those LEC-plastic ellipsoids in \(\ell_2\) in terms of a topological condition on the sequence \(\{a_n\}\). More precisely, the ellipsoid given in \((1)\) is LEC-plastic if, and only if, every subset \(B\) of \(\{a_n:n\in\mathbb N\}\) with more than one point satisfies one of the following properties: \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] either there exists \(\omega:=\max B\) and the set \[ \{n\in\mathbb N: a_n=\omega\} \] is finite, or \item[(b)] there exists \(\alpha:=\min B\) and the set \[ \{n\in\mathbb N: a_n=\alpha\} \] is finite. \end{itemize}