On reflexivity and the Ascoli property for free locally convex spaces (Q2184800)

This paper is concerned with the reflexivity of locally convex vector spaces and with their reflexivity as abelian topological groups in the sense of Pontryagin-van Kampen duality. It was proved in [\textit{M. Smith}, Ann. Math. (2) 56, 248--253 (1952; Zbl 0047.10701)] that every Banach space as well as every reflexive locally convex space is reflexive as an abelian topological group. In the present paper the author deals with both kinds of reflexivity of free locally convex spaces. Recall that the free locally convex space \(L(X)\) over a Tychonoff space \(X\) is a locally convex space in which \(X\) embeds as a topological vector space, the embedded \(X\) forms a Hamel bases of \(L(X)\), and every continuous map from \(X\) to a locally convex space can be (uniquely) extended to a continuous linear map on the whole \(L(X)\). The author points out from the well-known results that the free locally convex space \(L(X)\) is reflexive if and only if \(X\) is discrete and asks for which Tychonoff spaces \(X\) it is reflexive as a topological group. This question is motivated by the above mentioned result of M. Smith from which it follows that there are non-reflexive locally convex spaces that are reflexive as a topological group (every non-reflexive Banach space is such an example). The main result of the paper partially answers this question as follows: Theorem t1. Let \(X\) be a Dieudonné complete space. Then \(L(X)\) is a reflexive group if and only if \(X\) is discrete. Recall that a topological space \(X\) is said to be Dieudonné complete if it is homeomorphic to a closed subset of a Cartesian product \(\Pi_{i\in I} M_i\) of metrizable spaces \(M_i\) endowed with the Tychonoff product topology. Using the proof of Theorem t1 the author provides an alternative proof of a theorem from [\textit{ T. Banakh}, ``Fans and their applications in general topology'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1602.04857}]: Theorem t2. Let \(X\) be a Dieudonné complete space. If \(L(X)\) is an Ascoli space, then \(X\) is a countable discrete space. Moreover, it is deduced from deep results from the literature, that the condition of Dieudonné completeness can be removed from Theorem t2. That is, the following theorem holds: Theorem. For a Tychonoff space \(X\), the space \(L(X)\) is Ascoli if and only if \(X\) is a countable discrete space.