Stability of almost surjective \(\varepsilon\)-isometries of Banach spaces (Q2517328)

A result of \textit{S. Mazur} and \textit{S. Ulam} [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris 194, 946--948 (1932; Zbl 0004.02103)] states that a surjective isometry between real normed spaces is affine. Many mathematicians have extended it or proved it in other frameworks; see [\textit{M. S. Moslehian} and \textit{G. Sadeghi}, Nonlinear Anal., Theory Methods Appl., Ser. A, Theory Methods 69, No. 10, 3405--3408 (2008; Zbl 1160.46049)] and references therein. It is natural to ask whether a mapping that nearly preserves distances and almost covers the target space can be approximated by a surjective (affine) isometry. The author proves that for a mapping \(f: X\to Y\) between real Banach spaces satisfying \(|\,\|f(y)-f(x)\| - \|y-x\|\,|\leq \varepsilon\) for some \(\varepsilon >0\) and all \(x, y \in X\), (i) if \(\lim_{|t|\to \infty}\inf d(ty, f(X))/|t|<1/2\), then there is a surjective norm-one linear operator \(U:Y\to X\) such that \(\|Uf(x)-x\| \leq 4\varepsilon\) for all \(x\in X\), (ii) if \(\sup_{y\in S_Y}\lim_{|t|\to \infty}\inf d(ty, f(X))/|t|<1/2\), then \(U^{-1}: X \to Y\) is a surjective linear isometry satisfying \(\|f(x)-U^{-1}x\|\leq 2\varepsilon\) for all \(x\in X\). The latter result affirmatively answers a question posed by \textit{J. Väisälä} [in: Papers on analysis: a volume dedicated to Olli Martio on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Jyväskylä: Univ. Jyväskylä, Institut für Mathematik und Statistik. Ber., Univ. Jyväskylä. 83, 305--315 (2001; Zbl 1006.46010)].