The structure of uniformly Gâteaux smooth Banach spaces (Q5951492)

The norm of a real Banach space \(X\) is said to be uniformly Gâteaux smooth (UG) if for every \(h \in X\), the limit \(\lim (t^{-1}\|x + th\|- \|x\|)\) exists as \(t \) tends to zero uniformly on \(x \in S_X, \) where \(S_X \) is the unit sphere of \(X\). A compact set \(K\) is said to be a uniform Eberlein compact if it is homeomorphic to a weakly compact subset of a Hilbert space, considered in its weak topology. The purpose of the paper under review is to show that the existence of an UG-norm on \(X\) provides a lot of information about the structure of \(X\). The main results are: (i) A Banach space \(X\) admits an equivalent UG-norm iff the dual unit ball equipped with the weak*-topology is a uniform Eberlein compact, and (ii) a compact space \(K\) is a uniform Eberlein compact iff \(C(K)\) admits an equivalent UG-norm, iff there is a Hilbert space \(\mathcal H\) and a bounded linear operator from \(\mathcal H\) onto a dense set in \(C(K)\). The final section consists of remarks showing that the main results are essentially optimal.