Shift invariant preduals of \(\ell_1(\mathbb Z)\) (Q1936809)

It is well known that the space \(\ell_1\) has many different preduals. For example, \(C (K)\) is an isometric predual of \(\ell_1\) for every countable compact (Hausdorff) space \(K\). For isomorphic preduals, the situation is much more complicated. For example, \textit{J. Bourgain} and \textit{F. Delbaen} [Acta Math. 145, 155--176 (1980; Zbl 0466.46024)] constructed isomorphic preduals of \(\ell_1\) which have the Radon-Nikodým property and are somewhat reflexive (each subspace contains a further reflexive subspace). Another recent exotic predual of \(\ell_1\) was constructed by \textit{S. A. Argyros} and \textit{R. G. Haydon} [Acta Math. 206, No. 1, 1--54 (2011; Zbl 1223.46007)] to solve the \(\lambda I + K\) problem. In the paper under review, the authors consider a specific class of preduals: preduals of \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\) which are shift invariant. There are different equivalent ways to say that a predual \(F\) of \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\) is shift invariant: either saying that the bilateral shift on \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\) is \(\sigma \big(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z}), F \big)\)-continuous; or saying that \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\) is a dual Banach algebra (i.e., the convolution on \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\) is separately \(\sigma \big(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z}), F \big)\)-continuous); or saying that \(F\), isomorphically identified with a subspace of \(\ell_\infty ({\mathbb Z})\), is invariant under the bilateral shift on \(\ell_\infty ({\mathbb Z})\). In a first part (Section 3), the authors construct an uncountable family \((F_\lambda)_{|\lambda| > 1}\) of pairwise distinct subspaces of \(\ell_\infty ({\mathbb Z})\) which are all shift invariant preduals of \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\). The spaces \(F_\lambda\) being pairwise distinct, the topologies \(\sigma \big(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z}), F_\lambda \big)\) are also pairwise distinct (and, moreover, different from \(\sigma \big(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z}), c_0 ({\mathbb Z}) \big)\)). However, the spaces \(F_\lambda\) are all \(G\)-spaces and their Szlenk index is \(\omega\), so that they are all isomorphic, as Banach spaces, to \(c_0\). In a second part (Section 4 and Section 5), the authors give (Theorem 4.1) a characterization of the shift invariant preduals of \( \ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\), in terms of semigroup compactification of \({\mathbb Z}\) (using the fact that every \(F \subseteq \ell_\infty ({\mathbb Z})\) which is shift invariant is contained in \(WAP ({\mathbb Z})\), the space of weakly almost periodic functions on \({\mathbb Z}\)). That allows them to construct a shift invariant predual of \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\) which is not isomorphic to \(c_0\) (actually, its Szlenk index is \(\omega^2\)), and another one which is not an isometric predual of \(\ell_1 ({\mathbb Z})\). The paper ends with several questions.