An absolutely summing operator is an absolutely p-summing operator with . The identity on the infinite-dimensional l2 sequence space is not absolutely summing: the first coordinate vectors have sum of norms , while their weak 1-norm is .
For a bounded linear operator , write the weak square norm of a finite family as
It is a 2-summing operator if for all finite families, and is the least such . This specializes the definition of an absolutely p-summing operator.
First let , be Hilbert spaces. For the column operator , , the Riesz representation theorem gives . If is a Hilbert-Schmidt operator, the Parseval identity applied to orthonormal bases gives
Thus . Conversely test the summing inequality on any finite orthonormal family in . Its weak square norm is , by the Bessel inequality, with equality by choosing one of its vectors. Hence . Taking the supremum over finite subsets of an orthonormal basis proves the Hilbert-Schmidt operator condition and the reverse norm inequality. These basis sums work even for nonseparable Hilbert spaces, being understood as suprema of finite subsums. Therefore
For an -dimensional normed vector space , again associate a family with . By the Hahn-Banach theorem and scalar Euclidean duality,
Let be the orthogonal projection onto , whose dimension is at most . Since , the trace of gives
This proves for every norm, without comparing that norm to an arbitrary Euclidean norm.
To obtain equality and the projection bound, choose a maximum-volume centered ellipsoid inside the unit ball and use coordinates in which it is the Euclidean ball . In the real case this is the John ellipsoid; in the complex case maximize among Hermitian ellipsoids. There are unit contact vectors and positive weights with the John contact decomposition
For completeness, the maximum-volume argument gives this identity. If were outside the closed convex cone of the contact matrices, finite-dimensional separation would supply a symmetric, or Hermitian, matrix with and at every contact. The cone is closed because its compact generators have trace one. Subtract a sufficiently small multiple of the identity to make all contact inequalities strict while retaining positive trace. The support function of decreases near the contact directions for small ; away from them the strict gap between the support functions of and permits the same small deformation. Thus this deformed ball still lies in . Its volume increases, since the real determinant is in the real case and in the complex case. This contradicts maximality. The finite-dimensional convex-cone representation gives finitely many contacts, and taking traces gives the sum of the weights.
At a contact , a supporting hyperplane to also supports . The Euclidean ball has a unique supporting direction there, so the corresponding functional is and has dual norm one on . In the complex case balancedness of turns the real support bound into . Also gives . For any dual-unit functional , this containment implies that its Euclidean norm is at most one. Apply the summing definition to :
The weak square norm is exactly one, since any contact functional attains that Euclidean norm. Hence . Together with the upper estimate, the norm is
This proves the 2-summing norm of a finite-dimensional identity formula.
Finally retain the preceding finite-dimensional hypothesis when . Extend each to a dual-unit functional on using the real or complex Hahn-Banach theorem. Define
The contact identity gives , hence and its range is . The synthesis operator has Euclidean operator norm one, because its product with its adjoint is the identity. Therefore
Thus the linear projection satisfies , the Kadec-Snobar projection bound. If , the zero projection gives the same conclusion. No assertion about arbitrary infinite-dimensional subspaces is required.
For Banach spaces and , define the weak -norm of a finite family by
A bounded linear operator is an absolutely p-summing operator if for every finite family. The least constant is .
The Pietsch factorization theorem states that such an operator admits a probability measure on with its weak-star topology such that
Equivalently, let be the evaluation embedding and the natural map. There is a bounded linear operator , where , such that and . Conversely, any such factorization makes an absolutely p-summing operator, with . The final operator is required on this closed subspace ; no extension to all of is assumed.
Here is the existence proof. If the conclusion is immediate. Otherwise write . The Banach-Alaoglu theorem makes compact, and is continuous for each . For finitely many vectors , put
We claim the compact convex hull of meets . If it did not, finite-dimensional Hahn-Banach separation theorem would give weights with
The weights are nonnegative because the second convex set is unbounded in every positive coordinate direction. This strict inequality contradicts the defining summing inequality applied to . Thus a finite convex combination of the vectors lies coordinatewise above . Equivalently, a finitely supported probability measure satisfies all these finitely many domination constraints.
By the Riesz-Markov-Kakutani representation theorem, probability measures on compact are the positive norm-one functionals on taking the constant function to one. They form a compact set in the weak-star topology, by the Banach-Alaoglu theorem. Each domination constraint is closed. The finite feasibility just proved gives the finite intersection property, hence one measure satisfies every constraint.
Define . The domination inequality makes this well-defined and bounded by , and completeness of extends it to . Conversely, any factorization satisfies
This proves both directions of the Pietsch factorization theorem, including the optimal factorization norm.
For the multiplication operator, let and take . Point evaluations are norm-one linear functionals on , so
Thus is an absolutely p-summing operator and . Taking the single function gives the reverse inequality, so
For , the explicit domination measure on is , pushed into by . For everything is zero; no essential boundedness of is needed.
Let be a cotype 2 constant of . All bounded linear operators from have finite p-summing norms: writing and using the triangle inequality in the finite-family norm gives . Thus applying the Pietsch factorization theorem below is legitimate.
First let , and use the Pietsch factorization theorem to choose a probability measure on the dual unit ball . For a finite family , the cotype 2 inequality and Pietsch factorization theorem domination give
The Jensen inequality bounds the final bracket by . For real or complex scalars,
For complex scalars, paired-index expansion gives , which is at most the displayed bound by the triangle inequality. For real scalars this reduces to . Since is a probability measure on the dual unit ball, we obtain
Taking the least constant proves with , uniformly in .
We next prove a summing-norm interpolation estimate using coordinate truncation. Put and , assuming . The Pietsch factorization theorem for gives a measure on . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
Set . Their sum is at most one; adding the missing mass to one coordinate, if necessary, makes a probability vector and preserves domination. Hence
Write . For , clip each coordinate of at magnitude , obtaining , with if . Set . Then and
The triangle inequality and the two different bounds on now give . For , take ; if , domination already gives . Consequently
Summing fourth powers over any family gives
since each coordinate evaluation belongs to the dual unit ball. Therefore . Combine this with the first estimate:
The zero operator also satisfies this inequality. Both constants depend only on , through its cotype 2 constant, and not on .
Finally let have dimension , with its inherited norm. The permitted finite-dimensional identity result is . The inclusion is an isometric embedding, so . For every Banach space isomorphism , apply the preceding estimate to and the ideal property of absolutely p-summing operators:
The Banach-Mazur distance is the infimum of this last product over , and therefore
For an absolutely p-summing operator , there is a probability measure on the dual unit ball with its weak-star topology such that . Thus factors through the closed span of the evaluation functions in , with the final operator having norm at most . Conversely this factorization implies the summing inequality by summing under the integral. Existence of follows from finite-dimensional Hahn-Banach separation theorem: failure for finitely many vectors would contradict the summing inequality for a nonnegative weighted family. Compactness of probability measures then combines the finite constraints. The final operator need only be defined on the indicated closed subspace, not on all of .