The ZOO of combinatorial Banach spaces

Abstract

We study Banach spaces induced by families of finite sets in the most natural (Schreier-like) way, that is, we consider the completion $X_\mc{F}$ of $c_{00}$ with respect to the norm $\sup\{\sum_{k\in F}|x(k)|:F\in\mc{F}\}$ where $\mc{F}$ is an arbitrary (not necessarily compact) family of finite sets covering $\mbb{N}$. Among other results, we discuss the following: (1) Structure theorems bonding the combinatorics of $\mc{F}$ and the geometry of $X_\mc{F}$ including possible characterizations and variants of the Schur property, $\ell_1$-saturation, and the lack of copies of $c_0$ in $X_\mc{F}$. (2) A plethora of examples including a relatively simple $\ell_1$-saturated combinatorial space which does not satisfy the Schur property, as well as a new presentation of Pe\l czy\'nski's universal space. (3) The complexity of the family $\{H\subseteq\NN:X_{\mc{F}\upharpoonright H}$ does not contain $c_0\}$.