Non-unitarisable representations and maximal symmetry

We investigate questions of maximal symmetry in Banach spaces and the structure of certain bounded non-unitarisable groups on Hilbert space. In particular, we provide structural information about bounded groups with an essentially unique invariant complemented subspace. This is subsequently combined with rigidity results for the unitary representation of ${\rm Aut}(T)$ on $\ell_2(T)$, where $T$ is the countably infinite regular tree, to describe the possible bounded subgroups of ${\rm GL}(\mathcal H)$ extending a well-known non-unitarisable representation of $\mathbb F_\infty$. As a related result, we also show that a transitive norm on a separable Banach space must be strictly convex

Displaying Polish groups on separable Banach spaces

A display of a topological group G on a Banach space X is a topological isomorphism of G with the isometry group Isom(X,||.||) for some equivalent norm ||.|| on X, where the latter group is equipped with the strong operator topology. Displays of Polish groups on separable real spaces are studied. It is proved that any closed subgroup of the infinite symmetric group S_\infty containing a non-trivial central involution admits a display on any of the classical spaces c0, C([0,1]), lp and Lp for 1 <=p <\infty. Also, for any Polsih group G, there exists a separable space X on which {-1,1} x G has a display.Comment: 27 page

Banach spaces without minimal subspaces

We prove three new dichotomies for Banach spaces \`a la W.T. Gowers' dichotomies. The three dichotomies characterise respectively the spaces having no minimal subspaces, having no subsequentially minimal basic sequences, and having no subspaces crudely finitely representable in all of their subspaces. We subsequently use these results to make progress on Gowers' program of classifying Banach spaces by finding characteristic spaces present in every space. Also, the results are used to embed any partial order of size $\aleph_1$ into the subspaces of any space without a minimal subspace ordered by isomorphic embeddability

Some strongly bounded classes of Banach spaces

We show that the classes of separable reflexive Banach spaces and of spaces with separable dual are strongly bounded. This gives a new proof of a recent result of E. Odell and Th. Schlumprecht, asserting that there exists a separable reflexive Banach space containing isomorphic copies of every separable uniformly convex Banach spaces.Comment: 10 page