Delta-semidefinite and delta-convex quadratic forms in Banach spaces

A continuous quadratic form (“quadratic form”, in short) on a Banach space X is: (a) delta-semidefinite (i.e., representable as a difference of two nonnegative quadratic forms) if and only if the corresponding symmetric linear operator factors through a Hilbert space; (b) delta-convex (i.e., representable as a difference of two continuous convex functions) if and only if T is a UMD-operator. It follows, for instance, that each quadratic form on an infinite-dimensional L p (μ) space (1 ≤ p ≤ ∞) is: (a) delta-semidefinite iff p ≥ 2; (b) delta-convex iff p > 1. Some other related results concerning delta-convexity are proved and some open probms are stated.