On trees and dual rotund norms (Q2368771)

The norm \(\| \cdot\| \) of a Banach space \(X\) is called \textit{locally uniformly rotund} (LUR) if \(\| x-x_n\| \rightarrow 0\) whenever \(x,x_n\in S_X\) (the unit sphere of \(X\)), \(n\in\mathbb{N}\), and \(\| x+x_n\| \rightarrow 2\). The norm is called \textit{rotund} (R) if \(S_X\) does not contain nontrivial segments. An active and important line of research investigates conditions for renorming a given class of Banach space in an LUR or R fashion. A~huge amount of work has been done in the \(C(K)\) case, \(K\) a compact space, in particular \(C_0(L)\), \(L\) a locally compact space and, more specifically, a tree \(\Upsilon\). The present paper provides a necessary and sufficient condition for renorming \(C_0(\Upsilon)\) in such a way that the dual space \(\ell_1(\Upsilon)\) endowed with the dual norm is \(R\). Given two partial orders \((P,\leq)\) and \((Q,\preceq)\), a map \(\rho:P\rightarrow Q\) is called \textit{strictly increasing} if \(\rho(x)\prec\rho(y)\) whenever \(x<y\), and \(P\) is said to be \textit{\(Q\)-embeddable} (written \(P\preceq Q\)) if there exists a strictly increasing map \(\rho:P\rightarrow Q\). A partial order \(\Upsilon\) is called a \textit{tree} if the set of strict predecessors of \(t\) is well-ordered, for every \(t\in\Upsilon\). A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a dual LUR renorming of \(\ell_1(\Upsilon)\) is due to Raja: the condition reads \(\Upsilon\preceq\mathbb{Q}\). Here it is proved (Theorem 6) that \(\ell_1(\Upsilon)\) has an equivalent dual \(R\) norm if and only if \(\Upsilon\preceq Y\), where \(Y\) is the set of all strictly increasing, continuous, transfinite sequences \(x=(x_\alpha)_{\alpha\leq\beta}\) of real numbers, where \(0\leq\beta<\omega_1\), ordered by declaring that \(x<y\) if and only if \(y\) strictly extends \(x\), or there is some ordinal \(\alpha\) such that \(x_{\xi}=y_\xi\) for \(\xi<\alpha\) and \(x_\alpha<y_\alpha\). This extends previous results of \textit{R.\,Haydon} [Proc.\ Lond.\ Math.\ Soc.\ 78\,(3), 541--584 (1999; Zbl 1036.46003)].