The pointwise James type constant (Q6111832)

This paper belongs to isometric theory of Banach spaces. A famous open problem, which goes back to Mazur, asks whether a separable Banach space such that the invertible isometries act transitively on the unit sphere is isometric to the Hilbert space. The present paper provides some interesting observations in this active field of research. The main tool is the pointwise version of James type constants introduced by \textit{Y. Takahashi} [in: Proceedings of the 2nd international symposium on Banach and function spaces II (ISBFS 2006), Kitakyushu, Japan, September 14--17, 2006. Yokohama: Yokohama Publishers. 191--220 (2008; Zbl 1163.46012)], which is a one-parameter family of moduli expressing the metric behaviour of the norm attached to an arbitrary point of the unit sphere. The main result is Theorem 3.6, which asserts that a quasi-transitive Banach space is the Hilbert space as soon as one of the moduli is equal to \(\sqrt{2}\) at some point of the sphere. The proof relies on the fact that the moduli are independent of the point in quasi-transitive spaces, and on a previous result shown by \textit{N.~Komuro} et al. [Math. Nachr. 289, No.~8--9, 1005--1020 (2016; Zbl 1354.46019)]. Another important result is Theorem 4.6, which states the independence on the chosen point in convex-transitive spaces. A number of quasi-transitive and thus convex-transitive non Hilbertian spaces are known. Note however that it seems difficult to replace convex-transitivity by the full transitivity assumption for attacking Mazur's rotation problem, as it is commonly called.