On a theorem of Abatzoglou for operators on abstract \(L\) and \(M\)-spaces (Q2627937)

The starting point for the results of the paper is a classical result of \textit{T. J. Abatzoglou} which describes the smooth points in the space of linear and continuous operators on a Hilbert space. More precisely, in [Math. Ann. 239, 129--135 (1979, Zbl 0398.47013)] it was proved that, given a Hilbert space \(H\), an operator \(T\in L(H)\) is a smooth point (i.e., there exists a unique norm-one linear continuous functional norming \(T\)) if and only if there exists \(x_0\in S_H\) such that \(T\) only attains its norm at \(\pm x_0\) and \(\sup\{\| T(y)\|: y\in S_H, \;\langle y,x_0\rangle=0\}<1\). In the paper under review, the author formulates an analog of the previous result in \(L(X,Y)\), for an abstract \(L\)-space \(X\) and an arbitrary Banach space \(Y\), where orthogonality in Hilbert spaces is replaced with Birkhoff-James orthogonality. Indeed, it is proved that if an operator \(T\in L(X,Y)\) attains its norm at some extreme point \(x_0\in S_X\) and we denote the band projection associated with \(\mathrm{span}\{x_0\}\) by \(P\), then \(T\) is a smooth point of \(L(X,Y)\) if and only if \(T(x_0)\) is a smooth point of \(Y\) and \(\| T\circ (I-P)\|<\| T\|\), where \(I:X\longrightarrow X\) denotes the identity operator. The author also gets a similar statement when replacing the concept of smooth points with the one of very smooth points (i.e., when the smoothness condition is preserved under the canonical embedding in the bidual space). Finally, taking into account the duality between \(M\)-spaces and \(L\)-spaces, the author obtains a characterisation of the very smooth points of \(L(X,Y)\) along the same lines when \(X\) is an arbitrary Banach space and \(Y\) is an \(L^1\)-predual for which the set of extreme points of the dual unit ball is weakly-star compact obtaining, as a corollary of such a characterisation, that an operator \(T\in L(X,Y)\) is a very smooth point if and only if \(T\) is a Fréchet point under the previous assumptions on \(X\) and \(Y\).