Entropy numbers and interpolation (Q5894414)

This paper settles a long-standing question by showing that in certain circumstances the entropy numbers of a map do not behave well under real interpolation, that is, that an inequality of the form \[ e_{m+n-1}(T: (X_0,X_1)_{\theta,q} \to (Y_0,Y_1)_{\theta,q}) \leq C \, e_m(T:X_0 \to Y_0)^{1-\theta} e_n(T:X_1 \to Y_1)^\theta \] is not possible in general. To do this, lemmas of combinatorial type are established and used to obtain lower bounds for the entropy numbers of a particular diagonal map acting between Lorentz sequence spaces. These lower bounds contradict the estimates from above that would be obtained if the behaviour of entropy numbers under real interpolation was as good as conjectured. More precisely, for any \(\lambda \in (0,1)\), \(u \in (0,\infty]\), \(\theta \in (0,1]\) and \(p_0,p_1,q_0,q_1 \in (1,\infty)\) such that \(1/p_0-1/q_0=1/p_1-1/q_1=\lambda\), the diagonal operator \(T\) defined by \(T((x_i))= \left ( \frac{x_i}{(\log(i+1))^\lambda} \right)\) satisfies \(e_n(T: \ell_{p_j} \to \ell_{q_j}) \leq c_j n^{-\lambda}\) (\(j=0,1\)), while for \(1/p=(1-\theta)/p_0 + \theta/p_1\), \(1/q=(1-\theta)/q_0 + \theta/q_1\) one has \(e_n(T:\ell_{p,u} \to \ell_{q,u}) \geq c \, n^{-\lambda} (\log n)^\lambda\). The paper also provides sharp two-sided estimates of the entropy number \(e_{n}(T)\) of diagonal operators \(T:\ell_{p}\to \ell_{q}\), \(T((a_{k})) = (\lambda_{k} a_{k})\), where \(0 < p < q \leq \infty\) and \((\lambda _{i})\) is a non-increasing sequence of non-negative numbers with \(\lambda _{i} = \lambda _{n}\) for all \(i \leq n\).