Sharp asymptotics of the metric entropy for ellipsoids (Q706794)

The ellipsoid with semi-axes \(\lambda_j\), \(\lambda_j \downarrow 0\), is defined by \[ {\mathcal E}= \biggl \{ x \in l_2: \sum_{j=1}^\infty (x_j/\lambda_j)^2 \leq 1 \biggr \}. \] The authors find precise asymptotics for the entropy numbers \(e_n({\mathcal E})\). Asssuming that \(\lambda_j= \phi(j)\), where for every \(c>0\) \[ \lim_{t \to \infty} {\phi(ct) \over \phi (t)}=1, \] they prove that \[ \lim_{n \to \infty} {e_n({\mathcal E}) \over \phi(\log n)}=1. \] The proof is based on volume comparison of suitable finite dimensional projections of \({\mathcal E}\).