Finite codimensional isometries on spaces of vector-valued continuous functions (Q401345)

The authors give a representation for a class of linear isometries between spaces of vector-valued continuous functions. The underlying spaces are \(C(X,E)\) into \(C(Y,F)\), endowed with the standard \(\|\cdot \|_{\infty}\) norm, where \(X\) and \(Y\) are compact Haursdorff topological spaces, \(E\) and \(F\) are real or complex Banach spaces. The paper is divided into five sections. The introduction motivates the problem under study followed by a very clear historical perspective. It starts by mentioning the characterization for the surjective linear isometries on scalar-valued function spaces due Banach and Stone, then Jerison's generalization to the vector-valued case. Then the well-known extensions due to Holsztynski and Cambern for (not necessarily surjective) isometries follow. The second section contains the statements of the main theorems and also preliminary results as well as notation to be used throughout the paper. The two main theorems read as follows: {Theorem 2.2}. Let \(X, \, Y\) be compact Hausdorff spaces, \(E,F\) be strictly convex Banach spaces and \(T: C(X,E) \rightarrow C(Y,F)\) be a linear isometry. Suppose that the range of \(T\) has finite codimension \(n_0 \geq 1\). If \(F\) is infinite dimensional, then there exists a finite subset \(Y_N\) of \(Y\) and a surjective homeomorphism \(h :Y \rightarrow X\) such that \( \displaystyle (Tf)(y)= J_y (f(h(y)))\) for all \(f \in C(X,E)\) and all \(y \in Y\). Here, \(J_y : E \rightarrow F\) is an isometry for all \(y \in Y\), and it is surjective whenever \( y \notin Y_N\). Moreover, \[ \displaystyle\sum_{y\in Y_N} \, \mathrm{codim} (\mathrm{ran} \, J_y)= n_0. \] The authors also remark that, for the finite-dimensional case, if \(Y\) is finite, so is \(X\) and \( \displaystyle n_0 = (\mathrm{dim} F)(\mathrm{card} Y)-(\mathrm{dim} E) (\mathrm{card} X)\). The second main theorem addresses the situation when \(Y\) is infinite. {Theorem 2.3}. Let \(X,Y\) be compact Hausdorff spaces, \(E,F\) be strictly convex Banach spaces and \(T: C(X,E) \rightarrow C(Y,F)\) be a linear isometry. Suppose that the range of \(T\) has finite codimension \(n_0 \geq 1\). If \(F\) is finite dimensional and \(Y\) is infinite, then there exists a cofinite subset \(Y_1\) of \(Y\) and a continuous surjection \(\bar{h} :Y_1 \rightarrow X\) such that \( \displaystyle (Tf)(y)= J_y (f(\bar{h}(y)))\) for all \(f \in C(X,E)\) and all \(y \in Y_1\). Moreover, the set of all \(y \in Y\) for which \(J_y:E \rightarrow F\) is a surjective isometry is clopen, its complement is finite and \[ \displaystyle n_0= (\mathrm{dim} \, F) ( \mathrm{card} (Y\setminus Y_1) + \mathrm{card} \, \bar{h}^{-1} (A_2) - \mathrm{card} A_2), \] where \(A_2 = \{x \in X: \mathrm{card} \, \bar{h}^{-1} (x) \geq 2\}\). The authors give an example of a linear isometry between two vector-valued spaces of continuous functions where the strict convexity of the range spaces fails and the isometry is not a weighted composition operator. The third section is devoted to the proof of several technical lemmas. In Section 4, the authors address the infinite-dimensional case and prove Theorem 2.2. The proof of Theorem 2.3 is completed in the last section.