Let E be an infinite-dimensional Banach space and B(x, r) the closed ball of radius r and center x in E. The number {
)A(E) = sup r: r > 0, 3xi e E, i = 1,2,...,"Ilxi -zsll > 2~, B(z~, ~) r B(0, l)is called the packing constant of E. Likewise, the finite packing constant A s (E) is defined byObviously, A(E) _< Af(E). It was shown in [1] thatwhereThe finite analog of D(E) isThe constant A(/2) was calculated in [2]. This result was extended to lp in [3]: A(/p) --(1 + 21-1/P) -1 for 1 < p < oc. If the measure of the underlying space is nonatomic, then A(Lp) --(1 + 21-1/P) -~ for 1 < p __ 2 and A(Lp) = (l+2~/P) -x for 2 <_ p < co [4]. The relationship between the packing constant of a space and its reflexivity was studied in [1,5]. Upper and lower estimates for the packing constant in Orlicz spaces were obtained in [6][7][8][9]. The minimum radius of a ball that contains some elements xl, ..., x~ E lp with [Ixi -xjN >_ 1 for 1 _< i • j < n was found in [10]. For any infinite-dimensional space E, one has D(E) > 1 [11]; consequently, 1/3 < A(E) _< 1/2.In this paper, we study the packing constant in rearrangement-invariant spaces. A Banach space E of measurable functions on [0, 1] is said to be rearrangement-invariant, or symmetric, if x* (t) < y* (t) with y E E implies that x E E and [[xiig _< [[YiiE, where x*(t) sup x*(t)t 1/p, q = oo,