The dual of the Bourgain-Delbaen space

Abstract

It is shown that a script L_infty-space with separable dual constructed by Bourgain and Delbaen has small Szlenk index and thus does not have a quotient isomorphic to C(omega^omega). It follows that this is a script L_infty-space which is the same size as c_0 in the sense of the Szlenk index but does not contain c_0. This has some consequences in the theory of uniform homeomorphism of Banach spaces.

20 pages, LaTeX2e, Missing omegas in the statement and proof of Corollary 3.11 inserted