Proximinality in operator spaces (Q2839855)

The paper is concerned with proximinality in spaces of operators. More exactly, one studies the proximinality of \(L(X,G)\) in \(L(X,Y)\), where \(X,Y\) are Banach spaces and \(G\) is a subspace of \(T\). If \(L(X,G)\) is proximinal in \(L(X,Y)\), then \(G\) is proximinal in \(Y\) (Theorem 1). The converse of this result is more difficult to prove and it is known to hold only under some supplementary hypotheses, e.g., if \(G\) is a tensorial subspace of \(Y\), a notion introduced in this paper. One studies also the proximinality in spaces of nuclear operators: if \(G\) is a complemented subspace of \(X\), then \(N_1(G,Y)\) is proximinal in \(N_1(X,Y)\). If \(X,Y\) are Banach spaces, then a nuclear operator \(T:X\to Y\) is of the form \(Tx=\sum_{n=1}^\infty x^*_n(x)y_n\), \(x\in X\), for two sequences, \((x^*_n)\) in \(X^*\) and \((y_n)\) in \(Y\), with the norm \(\|T\|=\inf\sum_{n=1}^\infty \|x^*_n\|\|y_n\|,\) the infimum being taken with respect to all representations of \(T\) in the given form. If \(G\) is a complemented subspace of \(X\) with continuous projection \(P:X\to G,\) then every \(y^*\in G^*\) defines through \(x^*:=y^*\circ P\) a continuous linear functional \(x^*\in X^*\). The best approximation problem is understood in this sense: approximating nuclear operators \(T\in N_1(X,Y)\) by operators \(S\) of the form \(Sx= \sum_{n=1}^\infty (y^*_n\circ P)(x) z_n\), \(x\in X\), where \((y^*_n)\) is a sequence in \(G^*\) and \((z_n)\) a sequence in \(Y\). A similar result holds for the spaces \(N_p(G,\ell^p)\) and \(N_p(X,\ell^p)\) of \(p\)-nuclear operators, \(1<p<\infty\).