Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Let l < p < ∞, p ≠ 2 and α > 0. In what follows s p (α) will denote the space of all real or complex sequences for which
(1.1)
In this paper we show that the spaces s p (α) are Banach spaces under the natural norm and in fact share many properties that the usual l p spaces have. Our main results give characterizations of the surjective isometries of s p (α). These turn out to be quite different than the results for l p . For example, we show that for α ≠ 1, an operator T is a surjective isometry if and only if T is a modulus one multiple of the identity. The methods used are valid for both real and complex scalars. They involve the use of a disjoint support condition together with a property of semi inner products. In the complex case the information on isometries allows us to give complete descriptions of the Hermitian operators as well as the adjoint abelian operators.