Weight-preserving isomorphisms between spaces of continuous functions: the scalar case (Q499240)

Let \(\mathbb F\) be a finite field and \(\mathcal A\) and \(\mathcal B\) be vector spaces of \(\mathbb F\)-valued, compactly supported continuous functions defined on locally compact spaces \(X\) and \(Y\), equipped with Borel regular measures \(\mu_X\) and \(\mu_Y\), respectively. For \(f, g\in C_c(X,\mathbb F)\), the weight of \(f-g\), given by \(\operatorname{wt}(f-g):= \mu_X(\operatorname{supp}(f-g))\), defines a metric on \(C_c(X,\mathbb F)\) which extends the notion of Hamming metric introduced by Hamming in coding theory. A linear map \(H:\mathcal A\to\mathcal B\) is called a Hamming isometry if it is a linear isomorphism which preserves the weight of functions. Since every Hamming isometry is a separating linear isomorphism, linear separating maps are studied in the paper. It is shown that such a separating map from \(\mathcal A\) onto \(\mathcal B\), hence a Hamming isometry, is a general weighted composition operator when the vector space \(\mathcal A\) is controllable.