An optimal nonlinear extension of Banach-Stone theorem (Q306558)

The authors make substantial progress on the nonlinear versions of the classical Banach-Stone theorem that describes surjective linear isometries of spaces of continuous functions. Let \(K,L\) be locally compact Hausdorff spaces and let \(C_0(K)\) (\(C_0(L)\)) denote the space of real-valued continuous functions vanishing at infinity, equipped with the supremum norm. Let \(T: C_0(K) \rightarrow C_0(L)\) be a bijection. Let \(\sqrt 2 > M \geq 1\) be such that \[ \frac{1}{M}\|f-g\|-1 \leq \|T(f)-T(g)\| \leq M\|f-g\|+1 \] for all \(f,g \in C(K)\) and suppose that \(T^{-1}\) satisfies the same condition on \(C_0(L)\). Then there exist a homeomorphism \(\phi: L \rightarrow K\) and a continuous function \(\lambda: L \rightarrow \{-1,1\}\) such that, for all \(l \in L\) and \(f \in C_0(K)\), one has \[ |MT(f)(l)-\lambda(s)f(\phi(l))| \leq (M^2-1)\|f\|+\Delta, \] where \(\Delta\) does not depend on \(f\) or \(l\). This estimate of the distance of \(T\) to a linear isometry improves on the classical results for a linear \(T\) due to \textit{D. Amir} [Isr. J. Math. 3, 205--210 (1965; Zbl 0141.31301)] and \textit{M. Cambern} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 18, 1062--1066 (1967; Zbl 0165.47402)]. It also improves several recent results in the nonlinear case. In the linear case, \textit{H. B. Cohen} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 50, 215--217 (1975; Zbl 0317.46025)] showed that \(\sqrt 2\) is optimal.