Spreading Models in Banach Space Theory

We extend the classical Brunel-Sucheston definition of the spreading model by introducing the $\mathcal{F}$-sequences $(x_s)_{s\in\mathcal{F}}$ in a Banach space and the plegma families in $\mathcal{F}$ where $\mathcal{F}$ is a regular thin family. The new concept yields a transfinite increasing hierarchy of classes of spreading sequences. We explore the corresponding theory and we present examples establishing this hierarchy and illustrating the limitation of the theory.