Group duality with the topology of precompact convergence (Q1766704)

In the construction of duality for topological groups the first step consists in choosing a \textit{good} dual object that, in the case of Abelian topological groups, is another topological group. The group of continuous characters is then typically chosen as the algebraic support for that object. As for the topology, the compact-open topology is often used but has proven to be responsible for several pathologies. The main goal of the present paper is to show how the topology of uniform convergence on precompact subsets (precompact-open topology) fits more naturally into the scheme of group duality. The first examples of reflexive groups (groups topologically isomorphic to the character groups of their character groups, i.e., groups that in some sense are determined by their dual objects) were complete groups with complete character groups, such as locally compact groups or additive groups of Banach spaces, so that choosing the topologies of compact or of precompact convergence made no difference. Either of these topologies therefore serves to extend in a natural way classical duality. The main difference produced by replacing the compact-open topology by the precompact-open topology appears in the continuity of the evaluation map \(\gamma:G \to \widehat{ \widehat{G}\, }\). It was soon realized that \(\gamma\) is always continuous on compact subsets of \(G\), so that the global continuity of \(\gamma\) depends on how strongly compact subsets determine the topology of \(G\). The continuity of \(\gamma\) can therefore be described in terms of the relations between the topology of \(G\) and some of its \(k\)-topologies. The subtleties of these topologies have been the source of several inaccuracies and errors in the literature, some of them being presented and clarified in this paper. The main theorem of the paper under review consists in a characterization of reflexivity when the precompact-open topology is used. This characterization shows that a topological group \(G\) is reflexive if and only if \(G\) is a so-called \(k_\gamma\) group (i.e., quasi-convex hulls of \(k\)-neighborhoods are neighborhoods) and quasi-convex hulls of precompact subsets coincide with their bipolars (see the paper for details on the terminology). The value of this characterization is increased if applied to additive groups of locally convex vector spaces: such a group is reflexive if and only if it is von Neumann complete (precompact subsets are relatively compact, a weaker form of completeness) and every barrel that is a neighborhood in the \(k\)-topology is already a neighborhood. The paper contains many remarks and examples that clarify the behavior of group duality, mainly in the case of additive groups of locally convex vector spaces.