On the geometry of projective tensor products (Q529372)

The geometry of projective tensor products of Banach spaces is complicated. For example, the projective tensor product of \(\ell_2\) with itself, \(\ell_2 \otimes_\pi \ell_2\), contains a complemented isometric copy of \(\ell_1\). The paper under review is dedicated to the geometry of the 3-fold tensor product \(\ell_p^n \otimes_\pi \ell_q^n \otimes_\pi \ell_r^n\), \(1 \leq p \leq q \leq r \leq \infty\), focusing on the volume ratio of these spaces. Given an \(n\)-dimensional Banach space \(X\) with unit ball \(B_X\), let \(E_{\max} \subset B_X\) be the ellipsoid of maximal volume in \(B_X\). The volume ratio of \(X\) is defined by \[ vr(X) = \left( \frac{\mathrm{vol}_n(B_X)}{\mathrm{vol}_n(E_{\max})} \right)^{1/n}, \] where \(\mathrm{vol}_n(\cdot)\) denotes the \(n\)-dimensional Lebesgue measure. Asymptotic formulas for the volume ratio of \(\ell_p^n \otimes_\pi \ell_q^n \otimes_\pi \ell_r^n\) that are sharp in almost all cases are obtained. As a consequence, these spaces allow for a nearly Euclidean decomposition of Kašin type whenever \(1 \leq p \leq q \leq r \leq 2\) or \(1 \leq p \leq 2\leq r \leq \infty\) and \(q = 2\). \textit{J. Bourgain} and \textit{V. D. Milman} showed that for some numerical constant \(K\), \[ vr(X) \leq K C_2(X) \log(2C_2(X)), \] where \(C_2(X)\) is the cotype 2 constant of \(X\) (see [Invent. Math. 88, 319--340 (1987; Zbl 0617.52006)] and [\textit{V. D. Milman} and \textit{G. Pisier}, Isr. J. Math. 54, 139--158 (1986; Zbl 0611.46022)]). Considering the spaces \(X^n_\pi = \ell_p^n \otimes_\pi \ell_q^n \otimes_\pi \ell_r^n\) as subspaces of \(X = \ell_p \otimes_\pi \ell_q \otimes_\pi \ell_r\), the authors obtain information about the cotype of \(X\) from the volume ratio formulas for \(X^n_\pi\). The results generalize to the \(k\)-fold tensor product \(\ell_{p_1}^n \otimes_\pi \ell_{p_2}^n \otimes_\pi \cdots \otimes_\pi \ell_{p_k}^n\) with \(k \in \mathbb{N}\) and \(1 \leq p_1 \leq \dots \leq p_k \leq \infty\).