Decompositions of preduals of JBW and \(\text{JBW}^\ast\) algebras (Q321735)

1-Plichko Banach spaces ``form'', as the authors say, ``one of the largest classes of Banach spaces which admit a reasonable decomposition to separable spaces.'' More precisely, a Banach space \(X\) is called \(1\)-Plichko if it admits a countably 1-norming Markushevich basis or, equivalently, if it admits a commutative \(1\)-projectional skeleton. Here, a \(1\)-projectional skeleton is an indexed system \((P_\lambda)_{\lambda\in\Lambda}\) of contractive linear projections on \(X\) such that \(\Lambda\) is upward-directed and (i) every \(P_\lambda(X)\) is seperable, (ii) each increasing sequence \((\lambda_n)\) has a supremum \(\lambda\) such that \(P_\lambda(X)=\overline{\bigcup_\lambda P_{\lambda_n}(X)}\), (iii) \(X=\bigcup_\lambda P_\lambda (X)\) and (iv) \(P_\lambda P_\mu=P_\mu P_\lambda=P_\lambda\) whenever \(\lambda\leq\mu\); the skeleton is called commutative if \(P_\lambda P_\mu=P_\mu P_\lambda\) for all \(\lambda,\mu\in\Lambda\). Weakly compactly generated (WCG for short) Banach spaces form a subclass of 1-Plichko spaces. The paper's main result states that the predual \(M_*\) of a JBW\(^*\)-algebra \(M\) is a complex 1-Plichko space and that, moreover, the predual is WCG iff \(M\) is \(\sigma\)-finite. (A projection \(p\) is called \(\sigma\)-finite if any family of pairwise disjoint projections majorized by \(p\) is countable; \(M\) is called \(\sigma\)-finite if all its projections are \(\sigma\)-finite.) In a previous paper, the authors have shown the same result for von Neumann algebras, see [Isr. J. Math. 214, No. 2, 867--884 (2016; Zbl 1362.46015)], which form a subclass of JBW\(^*\)-algebras. Partly the tools for the proof resemble the ones of the authors' paper [loc. cit.] for the von Neumann case, for example the possibility to write the algebra's unit as the sum of a family of pairwise disjoint \(\sigma\)-finite projections, or the use of a kind of GNS construction to settle (part of) the WCG case. Yet in several parts the proof differs essentially from the von Neumann case. A weaker form of the commutative skeleton as described above is constructed with the images of the \(P_\lambda\) being only WCG instead of separable. In order to then obtain the desired commutative skeleton, the abstract, set theoretic method of elementary submodels is used. The authors also succeed in proving the real analogue of the main result: the predual of a JBW-algebra \(M\) is a real 1-Plichko space and is WCG iff \(M\) is \(\sigma\)-finite. (Recall that a JBW-algebra can be viewed as the self-adjoint part of a JBW\(^*\)-algebra.)