On Mazur rotations problem and its multidimensional versions

Abstract

The article is a survey related to a classical unsolved problem in Banach space theory, appearing in Banach’s famous book in 1932, and known as the Mazur rotations problem. Although the problem seems very difficult and rather abstract, its study sheds new light on the importance of norm symmetries of a Banach space, demonstrating sometimes unexpected connections with renorming theory and differentiability in functional analysis, with topological group theory and the theory of representations, with the area of amenability, with Fraïssé theory and Ramsey theory, and led to development of concepts of interest independent of Mazur problem. This survey focuses on results that have been published after 2000, stressing two lines of research which were developed in the last 10 years. The first one is the study of approximate versions of Mazur rotations problem in its various aspects, most specifically in the case of the Lebesgue spaces \(L_p\). The second one concerns recent developments of multidimensional formulations of Mazur rotations problem and associated results. Some new results are also included.