Characterization of inner product spaces in V- and L-spaces

Abstract

In [4], Freese and Murphy introduce a new class of spaces, the V-spaces, which include Banach spaces, hyperbolic spaces, and other metric spaces. In this class of spaces they investigate conditions which are equivalent to strict convexity in Banach spaces, and extend some of the Banach space results to this new class of spaces. It is natural to ask if known characterizations of real inner product spaces among Banach spaces can also be extended to this larger class of spaces. In the present paper it will be shown that a metrization of an angle bisector property used in [3] to characterize real inner product spaces among Banach spaces also characterizes real inner product spaces among V-spaces, and among another class of spaces, the L-spaces, which include hyperbolic spaces and strictly convex Banach spaces. In the process it is shown that in a complete, convex, externally convex metric space M, if the foot of a point on a metric line is unique, then M satisfies the monotone property, thus answering a question raised in [4].