Exposed and denting points in duals of operator spaces (Q1090913)

This important paper can be regarded as a continuation of the authors' article ''Extreme points in duals of operator spaces'' [Math. Ann. 261, 535-546 (1982; Zbl 0501.47015)] where the extreme points of the dual unit ball of a space of compact operators between real Banach spaces are determined to be \[ ext B(K(X,Y)^*) = ext B(X^{**})\quad \otimes \quad ext B(Y^*). \] The purpose of the present paper is to derive similar characterizations for the sets of strongly exposed points (abbreviated by s exp), exposed points (exp), and denting points (dent) as well as their ''weak*'' variants. In some intances, the results even apply to the dual of the whole operator space L(X,Y), e.g. (Theorem 1.6) \[ w^*-s \exp B(L(X,Y)^*) = s \exp B(X) \otimes w^*-s \exp B(Y^*). \] Applications include the discussion of Fréchet or Gâteaux differentiability of the operator norm. The proofs are quite involved and are based on bilinear versions of classical results of Shmulyan's which related differentiability properties of the norm to the exposed point structure of the dual unit ball. [A thorough investigation of this topic is contained in the authors' forthcoming paper ''Fréchet differentiability of the norm in operator spaces''.]