Linear extensions, almost isometries, and diameter two (Q2825911)

A closed subspace \(X\) of \(Y\) is said to be an ideal in \(Y\) if the annihilator of \(X\) is the kernel of a contractive projection on the dual \(Y^\ast\). Being an ideal can equivalently be characterized in the following way: for every \(\varepsilon>0\) and every finite-dimensional subspace \(E\subset Y\), there is a linear operator \(T: E\to X\) such that \(Te=e\) on \(X\cap E\) and NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \|Te\|\leq (1+\varepsilon)\|e\|\text{ for all }e\in E.NEWLINE\]NEWLINE If we replace this by NEWLINE\[NEWLINE(1-\varepsilon)\|e\|\leq\|Te\|\leq (1+\varepsilon)\|e\|\text{ for all }e\in E,NEWLINE\]NEWLINE then we arrive at the notion of an almost isometric ideal, which was introduced and studied in [\textit{T. A. Abrahamsen}, et al., Glasgow Math. J. 56, No. 2, 395--407 (2014; Zbl 1303.46012)]. Note that, by the principle of local reflexivity, any Banach space \(X\) is an almost isometric ideal in its bidual \(X^{\ast\ast}\).NEWLINENEWLINEPreviously it was known that every separable subspace of a Banach space \(Y\) is contained in a separable ideal in \(Y\). The main result of the paper under review improves this result by replacing the term ``ideal'' with the term ``almost isometric ideal''. The author then applies it to characterize diameter \(2\) properties, the Daugavet property, almost squareness, and octahedrality in terms of subspaces.