Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2004
We denote by $B_Y$ the unit ball of a normed linear space $Y$.
Definition. A symmetric, bounded, closed, convex set $A$ in a finite dimensional normed space $X$ is called a sufficient enlargement for $X$ if, for an arbitrary isometric embedding of $X$ into a Banach space $Y$, there exists a linear projection $P{:}\,Y\,{\to}\,X$ such that $P(B_Y)\,{\subset}\,A$.
Minimal-volume sufficient enlargements are determined for two-dimensional spaces. The main results are:
(i) Each minimal-volume sufficient enlargement for a two-dimensional space is a parallelogram or a hexagon.
(ii) If a two-dimensional normed space $X$ has a minimal-volume sufficient enlargement that is not a parallelogram, then $B_X$ is linearly equivalent to the regular hexagon.