We suggest a method of renorming of spaces of operators which are suitably approximable by sequences of operators from a given class. Further we generalize J. Johnsons’s construction of ideals of compact operators in the space of bounded operators and observe e.g. that under our renormings compact operators are $u$-ideals in the: space of 2-absolutely summing operators or in the space of operators factorable through a Hilbert space.

In the first part of the paper we prove some new result improving all those already known about the equivalence of the nonexistence of a projection (of any norm) onto the space of compact operators and the containment of $c_0$ in the same space of compact operators. Then we show several results implying that the space of compact operators is uncomplemented by norm one projections in larger spaces of operators. The paper ends with a list of questions naturally rising from old results and the results...

We show that a Banach space with separable dual can be renormed to satisfy hereditarily an “almost” optimal uniform smoothness condition. The optimal condition occurs when the canonical decomposition $X***=X^{\perp }\oplus X*$ is unconditional. Motivated by this result, we define a subspace X of a Banach space Y to be an h-ideal (resp. a u-ideal) if there is an hermitian projection P (resp. a projection P with ∥I-2P∥ = 1) on Y* with kernel $X^{\perp }$. We undertake a general study of h-ideals and u-ideals. For example we show that...

Let $X$ be a Banach space. We give characterizations of when $ℱ(Y,X)$ is a $u$-ideal in $𝒲(Y,X)$ for every Banach space $Y$ in terms of nets of finite rank operators approximating weakly compact operators. Similar characterizations are given for the cases when $ℱ(X,Y)$ is a $u$-ideal in $𝒲(X,Y)$ for every Banach space $Y$, when $ℱ(Y,X)$ is a $u$-ideal in $𝒲(Y,X^{**})$ for every Banach space $Y$, and when $ℱ(Y,X)$ is a $u$-ideal in $𝒦(Y,X^{**})$ for every Banach space $Y$.

Let χ(m,n) be the unconditional basis constant of the monomial basis $z^{\alpha }$, α ∈ ℕ₀ⁿ with |α| = m, of the Banach space of all m-homogeneous polynomials in n complex variables, endowed with the supremum norm on the n-dimensional unit polydisc ⁿ. We prove that the quotient of $su{p}_m\sqrt[m]{su{p}_m\chi (m,n)}$ and √(n/log n) tends to 1 as n → ∞. This reflects a quite precise dependence of χ(m,n) on the degree m of the polynomials and their number n of variables. Moreover, we give an analogous formula for m-linear forms, a reformulation...

We investigate sequences and operators via the unconditionally p-summable sequences. We characterize the unconditionally p-null sequences in terms of a certain tensor product and then prove that, for every 1 ≤ p < ∞, a subset of a Banach space is relatively unconditionally p-compact if and only if it is contained in the closed convex hull of an unconditionally p-null sequence.

We prove uniform factorization results that describe the factorization of compact sets of compact and weakly compact operators via Hölder continuous homeomorphisms having Lipschitz continuous inverses. This yields, in particular, quantitative strengthenings of results of Graves and Ruess on the factorization through ${\ell }_p$-spaces and of Aron, Lindström, Ruess, and Ryan on the factorization through universal spaces of Figiel and Johnson. Our method is based on the isometric version of the Davis-Figiel-Johnson-Pełczyński...