A dilation theoretic approach to Banach spaces

Abstract

For a complex Banach space $\mathbb X$, we prove that $\mathbb X$ is a Hilbert space if and only if every strict contraction $T$ on $\mathbb X$ dilates to an isometry if and only if for every strict contraction $T$ on $\mathbb X$ the function $A_T: \mathbb X \rightarrow [0, \infty]$ defined by $A_T(x)=(\|x\|^2 -\|Tx\|^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}$ gives a norm on $\mathbb X$. We also find several other necessary and sufficient conditions in this thread such that a Banach sapce becomes a Hilbert space. We construct examples of strict contractions on non-Hilbert Banach spaces that do not dilate to isometries. Then we characterize all strict contractions on a non-Hilbert Banach space that dilate to isometries and find explicit isometric dilation for them. We prove several other results including characterizations of complemented subspaces in a Banach space, extension of a Wold isometry to a Banach space unitary and describing norm attainment sets of Banach space operators in terms of dilations.