EN
We investigate the existence of higher order ℓ¹-spreading models in subspaces of mixed Tsirelson spaces. For instance, we show that the following conditions are equivalent for the mixed Tsirelson space $X = T[(θₙ,𝓢ₙ)^{∞}_{n=1}]$:
(1) Every block subspace of X contains an $ℓ¹-𝓢_{ω}$-spreading model,
(2) The Bourgain ℓ¹-index $I_{b}(Y) = I(Y) > ω^{ω}$ for any block subspace Y of X,
(3) $limₘ lim supₙ θ_{m+n}/θₙ > 0$ and every block subspace Y of X contains a block sequence equivalent to a subsequence of the unit vector basis of X.
Moreover, if one (and hence all) of these conditions holds, then X is arbitrarily distortable.