On isometric reflexions in Banach spaces

Abstract

We obtain the following characterization of Hilbert spaces. Let $E$ be a Banach space whose unit sphere $S$ has a hyperplane of symmetry. Then $E$ is a Hilbert space iff any of the following two conditions is fulfilled: a) the isometry group ${\rm Iso}\, E$ of $E$ has a dense orbit in S; b) the identity component $G_0$ of the group ${\rm Iso}\, E$ endowed with the strong operator topology acts topologically irreducible on $E$. Some related results on infinite dimentional Coxeter groups generated by isometric reflexions are given which allow to analyse the structure of isometry groups containing sufficiently many reflexions.