An approach to numerical ranges without Banach algebra theory (Q1083666)

It is known that the concept of numerical range of an element of an (even nonassociative) unital Banach algebra does not depend on the product of the algebra but only on the underlying Banach space and on the unit. Therefore it is possible to consider numerical ranges in arbitrary Banach spaces in which a norm-one element has been selected. As in unital Banach algebras the authors consider the state space \(D(X)=\{f\in X':\| f\| =f(u)=1\}\) of the Banach space X (where u is an element of X) and the numerical range \(V(x)=\{f(x):f\in D(X)\}\) of element \(x\in X\). Now a number of results on numerical ranges can not only be extended to the case of Banach space but even improved in their original context. In section 2 of the paper under review a result of Smith is extended to the case of arbitrary real or complex numerical range spaces. It is shown that for all F in X'' there exists a net \((x_{\lambda})_{\lambda \in \Lambda}\) in X such that \(V(x_{\lambda})\subset \Omega\) for all \(\lambda\in \Lambda\) (\(\Omega\) is a convex closed subset of \({\mathbb{R}}\) or \({\mathbb{C}}\) with nonempty interior) and \((x_{\lambda})\to F\) in the \(w^*\)-topology. The numerical range spaces, when V(F) (F\(\subset X'')\) is a segment, are considered in section 3. Section 4 has been devoted to several applications. A dual characterization of unital noncommutative \(JB^*\)-algebras is given here. It is shown that every complex-valued bounded affine function f on a compact convex set of a separated locally convex space is a point-wise limit of a net of continuous affine functions whose values lie in the closure of the range of f. At the end of this article the numerical indices of bidual spaces are considered.