\(CH\), a problem of Rolewicz and bidiscrete systems (Q649609)

Let \(X\) be a Banach space. A sequence \((f_\alpha,\phi_\alpha)_{\alpha<\alpha^*}\) in \(X\times X^*\) is said to be a semi-biorthogonal sequence if for all \(\alpha, \beta<\alpha^*\), we have \(\phi_\alpha(f_\alpha)=1\), \(\phi_\alpha(f_\beta)=0\) if \(\beta<\alpha\) and \(\phi_\alpha(f_\beta)\geq0\) if \(\beta>\alpha\). A biorthogonal system \((f_\alpha,\phi_\alpha)_{\alpha<\alpha^*}\) in \(X \times X^*\) is one such that \(\phi_\alpha(f_\alpha)=1\) and \(\phi_\alpha(f_\beta)=0\) if \(\beta\neq\alpha\). A Banach space is a Rolewicz space if it is non-separable but does not have an uncountable semi-biorthogonal sequence. If \(X = C(K)\) is the Banach space of continuous functions on a compact space \(K\), then a sequence \((f_\alpha,\phi_\alpha)_{\alpha<\alpha^*}\) in \(X\times X^*\) is a nice semi-biorthogonal sequence if it is a semi-biorthogonal sequence and there are points \(x_\alpha^\ell, \ell=0,1, \alpha<\alpha^*\) in \(K\) such that \(\phi_\alpha=\delta(x_\alpha^1)-\delta(x_\alpha^0)\) where \(\delta\) denotes the Dirac measure. A similar definition is given for nice biorthogonal systems. In this paper, the authors give a construction under CH of a non-metrizable compact Hausdorff space \(K\) such that any uncountable nice semi-biorthogonal sequence in \(C(K)\) must be of a very specific kind. The space \(K\) has many nice properties, such as being hereditarily separable, hereditarily Lindelöf and a 2-to-1 continuous preimage of a metric space, and all Radon measures on \(K\) are separable. However \(K\) is not a Rosenthal compactum. The bidiscrete systems in a compact space \(K\) that the authors introduce are subsets of \(K^2\) which determine biorthogonal systems of a special kind in \(C(K)\) which are nice. It is noted that for every infinite compact Hausdorff space \(K\), the space \(C(K)\) has a bidiscrete system and hence a nice biorthogonal system of size \(d(K)\), the density of \(K\).