Almost periodic functionals on some class of Banach algebras (Q2477937)

Let \(\text{ap}(A)\) denote the space of the almost periodic functionals on a Banach algebra \(A\); that is, \(\phi\) in \(A^*\) is in \(\text{ap}(A)\) if and only if the map \(a\mapsto \phi.a\colon A\to A^*\) is compact (\(\phi.a(b) = \phi(ab)\) for every \(b\) in \(A\)). In this paper, the author shows that if \(A\) includes a dense (continuous, homomorphic) image of the group algebra \(L^1(G)\) of some locally compact group \(G\), then \(\text{ap}(A)\) is the closed linear span of the spaces \((\text{ker}\,\sigma)^\perp\) where \(\sigma\) is an irreducible finite-dimensional representation of \(A\). The same characterisation is given in the case that \(A\) is Arens regular and \(A^{**}\) includes a dense image of \(L^1(G)\). In either case, if each \(\text{ker}\,\sigma\) is an M-ideal, the ``closed linear span'' in the characterisation can be replaced by ``\(\ell^1\)-direct sum''. The latter characterisation is applied to C*-algebras and the former to certain Banach algebras arising in abstract harmonic analysis. These applications and other related results constitute a considerable part of the paper. It should be noted that Corollary 1 is related to a result due to \textit{T.~Miao} [Can. J. Math. 48, 1273--1285 (1996; Zbl 0890.43001)].