Distortion and stability of the fixed point property for non-expansive mappings

Let X be a Banach space. We say that X satisfies the fixed point property (weak fixed point property) if every non-expansive mapping defined from a convex closed bounded (convex weakly compact) subset of X into itself has a fixed point. We say that X satisfies the stable fixed point property (stable weak fixed point property) if the same is true for every equivalent norm which is close enough to the original one. Denote by P(X) the set formed by all equivalent norms with the topology of the uniform convergence on the unit ball of X. We prove that the subset of P(X) formed by the norms failing the fixed point property is dense in P(X) when X is a non-distortable space which fails the fixed point property. In particular, no renorming of ?₁ can satisfy the stable fixed point property. Furthermore, we show some examples of distortable spaces failing the weak fixed point property, which can be renormed to satisfy the stable weak fixed point property. As a consequence we prove that every separable Banach space can be renormed to satisfy the stable weak fixed point property.