Unconditional families in Banach spaces (Q2480871)

A famous longstanding open problem is whether every infinite-dimensional Banach space \(X\) admits a separable infinite-dimensional quotient space. This paper proves that this is the case if \(X\) is a dual space. Another major discovery in this paper is the following Theorem. If \(X\) is separable and \(X^*\) is not separable, then \(X^{**}\) contains an unconditional family of size card\((X^{**})\). A third result is that if \(X\) is separable, then \(X\) is either reflexively saturated, or \(X^*\) contains an unconditional family of size card\((X^*)\) or \(X^{**}\) contains an unconditional family of size card\((X^{**})\). Recall that \textit{W.\,T.\thinspace Gowers} [Trans.\ Am.\ Math.\ Soc.\ 344, No.\,1, 407--420 (1994; Zbl 0811.46014)] gave the first example of a space \(X\) which contained no reflexive subspace or unconditional basic sequence, solving a famous problem. This third result gives the best possible positive solution to this problem. Indeed, there exist separable spaces \(X\) with \(X\), \(X^*\) and \(X^{**}\) all hereditarily indecomposable (hence cannot contain an unconditional basic sequence) and all not containing a reflexive subspace [\textit{S.\,A.\thinspace Argyros, A.\,D.\thinspace Arvanitakis} and \textit{A.\,G.\thinspace Tolias}, in: Methods in Banach Space Theory, Lond.\ Math.\ Soc.\ Lect.\ Note Ser.\ 337, 1--90 (2006; Zbl 1131.46006)]. The proofs involve Ramsey theory and trees, including an extension of Stern's theorem.