On isometry groups and maximal symmetry (Q2393591)

The paper under review is a major contribution to the study of the group of surjective isometries of a Banach space. Let us fix some notations. Given a Banach space \(X\) with norm \(\|\cdot\|\), \(\mathrm{Isom}(X,\|\cdot\|)\) denotes the group of surjective linear isometries of \((X,\|\cdot\|)\), which is a subgroup of the group \(GL(X)\) of all bounded invertible operators on \(X\). The norm \(\|\cdot\|\) is said to be maximal if, whenever \(|\cdot|\) is an equivalent norm on \(X\) with \(\mathrm{Isom}(X,\|\cdot\|)\leqslant \mathrm{Isom}(X,|\cdot|)\), then \(\mathrm{Isom}(X,\|\cdot\|)= \mathrm{Isom}(X,|\cdot|)\). A subgroup \(G\) of \(GL(X)\) is said to be bounded if \(\sup_{T\in G}\|T\|<\infty\). A bounded subgroup \(G\) of \(GL(X)\) induces naturally an equivalent norm in \(X\) whose group of isometries contains \(G\). The authors provide the first known example of a Banach space \(X\) such that \(GL(X)\) contains no maximal bounded subgroups, that is, \(X\) has no equivalent maximal norm. This solves in the negative a problem formulated by \textit{G. V. Wood} [Proc. R. Ir. Acad., Sect. A 82, 177--186 (1982; Zbl 0495.46014)]. The example can be taken to be super-reflexive and separable. The authors also provide a Banach space \(X\) (separable, reflexive) such that, for any equivalent norm on \(X\), the group of isometries acts nearly trivially on \(X\) (i.e., there is a decomposition \(X=F \oplus H\), where \(F\) is finite-dimensional, which is invariant by the group of isometries and such that the restriction of every isometry to \(H\) is a multiple of \(\mathrm{Id}_H\).) Techniques of hereditarily indecomposable complex Banach spaces are used in the way of getting the examples. These results are motivated and connected with Mazur's famous rotation problem and Dixmier's unitarizability problem.