Unconditional bases and Daugavet renormings

Abstract

We prove that the space ℓ2 – and more generally every infinite dimensional Banach space with an unconditional Schauder basis – can be renormed to have a Daugavet point. As a starting point, we introduce a new diametral notion for points of the unit sphere of Banach spaces, that complements the notion of Δ-points, but is weaker than the notion of Daugavet points. We show that this notion can be used to provide another geometric characterization of the Daugavet property, as well as to recover – and even to provide new – results about Daugavet points in various contexts such as absolute sums of Banach spaces or projective tensor products. Then, we observe that the study of this notion naturally leads to new renorming ideas in the context, and combine these with previous techniques from the literature to show that Daugavet points may exist even in super-reflexive spaces.