On the cone of bounded lower semicontinuous functions (Q2388197)

For a topological space \(X\), let \(BC(X)\) be the Banach space of all bounded, real-valued continuous functions on \(X\), endowed with the ordinary addition and multiplication and the partial order: \[ f_1\geq f_2\quad\text{iff }f_1(x)\geq f_2(x)\quad\text{for all }x\in X, \] and the sup-norm \(\| f\|= \sup\{|f(x)|: x\in X\}\). \(BC(X)_\sim\) denotes the cone of all bounded lower-semicontinuous, real-valued functions on \(X\), endowed with the same operations and structure as \(BC(X)\) and the uniform convergence topology. If \(X\) is a Hausdorff compact space, then \(BC(X)\) is denoted by \(C(X)\). As the main goal of this paper, the author proves the following theorem: Theorem 1. For a Tychonoff space \(X\), the following statements are equivalent: (1) \(X\) is normal; (2) there is a convex cone \(H\) in \(BC(X)_\sim\) containing \(C(\beta X)\) and such that the cone \(BC(X)_\sim\) is algebraically and structurally isomorphic and isometric to the cone \(H\). The identity \(H= BC(\beta X)_\sim\) is valid iff \(X\) is a compact space. The convex cone \(H\), as well as the isomorphism and isometry, are uniquely determined by property (2). The author applies this theorem to the study of the relationship between a class of multivalued maps and sublinear operators. Using these results, new proofs of theorems about continuous selections are obtained.