Metrical characterization of super-reflexivity and linear type of Banach spaces

Abstract

We prove that a Banach space X is not super-reflexive if and only if the hyperbolic infinite tree embeds metrically into X. We improve one implication of J.Bourgain's result who gave a metrical characterization of super-reflexivity in Banach spaces in terms of uniforms embeddings of the finite trees. A characterization of the linear type for Banach spaces is given using the embedding of the infinite tree equipped with a suitable metric.