Quantitative Grothendieck property (Q2019184)

As the author recalls in the introduction, in recent years quantifications of several Banach space properties (often related to weak compactness in the theorems of Gantmacher, Eberlein-Šmulyan, James) have been undertaken. The present paper continues this by dealing with a quantification of the notion of Grothendieck spaces. The latter are Banach spaces in whose dual each weak\(^*\)-con\-ver\-gent sequence converges weakly or, equivalently, each weak\(^*\)-Cauchy sequence is weakly Cauchy. (The argument for this equivalence is very elementary but we give it for the convenience of the reader: if \((x_n^*)\) is w\(^*\)-null, then so is \((y_n^*)\), where \(y_{2n+1}^*=2x_n^*\) and \(y_{2n}^*=x_n^*\), hence \((x_n^*)=(y_{2n+1}^*-y_{2n}^*)\) is weakly null by weak Cauchyness of \((y_n^*)\).) The two expressions \[ \delta_w(x_n^*)=\sup_{\|x^{**}\|\leq1}\inf_{n\in\mathbb{N}}\sup_{k,l\geq n}|x^{**}(x_k^*)-x^{**}(x_l^*)| \] and \[ \delta_{w^*}(x_n^*)=\sup_{\|x\|\leq1}\inf_{n\in\mathbb{N}}\sup_{k,l\geq n}|x_k^*(x)-x_l^*(x)| \] measure the diameter of the set of weak, respectively weak\(^*\) cluster points of a bounded sequence \((x_n^*)\) in the dual of a Banach space \(X\), they vanish iff the sequence is weakly Cauchy, respectively weak\(^*\)-Cauchy, and they give rise to the natural quantification of being a Grothendick space: given \(c\geq1\), a Banach space \(X\) is called \(c\)-Grothendieck if \[ \delta_w\leq c\delta_{w^*} \] on the bounded sequences of \(X^*\). Among the results we find the following: {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[(1)] \(\ell_{\infty}\) and \(L^{\infty}(\mu)\) (\(\mu\) \(\sigma\)-finite) are \(1\)-Grothendieck; \item [(2)] any nonreflexive Banach space (Grothendieck or not) admits, given \(c\geq1\), an equivalent norm for which the space is not \(c\)-Grothendieck; \item [(3)] in general, the converse of the fact ``a \(c\)-Grothendieck space (for some \(c\geq1\)) is a Grothendieck space'' does not hold. \end{itemize}} The proofs use (amongst others) a lemma of \textit{O. F. K. Kalenda} on (I)-envelopes [Isr. J. Math. 162, 157--181 (2007; Zbl 1149.46018)] which in turn is strongly related to an inequality of \textit{S. Simons} [Pac. J. Math. 40, 703--708 (1972; Zbl 0237.46012)]. The lemma allows to show an interesting description of \(c\)-Grothendieckness: \(X\) is \(c\)-Grothendieck if and only if the (I)-envelope [see the present paper for the definition] of the unit ball of \(X\) contains the ball of radius \(1/c\) of the bidual \(X^{**}\). The author mentions the open question whether known Grothendieck spaces like the Hardy space \(H^{\infty}\) are \(c\)-Grothendieck for some \(c\).