Extreme value theorem Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A real-valued continuous function on a nonempty compact space attains both its minimum and its maximum.
A compact space is one for which every open cover has a finite subcover. A Hausdorff space has disjoint open neighbourhoods of any two distinct points.
Let be a compact subspace of a Hausdorff space , and let . For each , choose disjoint open neighbourhoods of and of . Finitely many cover . Their corresponding intersection is an open neighbourhood of disjoint from . Thus is open, proving compact subspaces of a Hausdorff space are closed.
In particular, is closed as a subspace of compact . A closed subset of a compact space is compact: add its open complement to an open cover, apply compactness to the whole space, and discard that extra open set. Hence is compact.
In the cocountable topology on , two nonempty open sets always intersect. Their two countable complements have countable union, which cannot exhaust the uncountable real line. Therefore this space is not Hausdorff.
Every finite subset is compact in any topology. Conversely, from any infinite subset select distinct points and define
Each is cocountable and open; the sets increase and their union is all of . They therefore cover , but a finite selection is contained in some , which misses the infinitely many with . No finite subcover exists. Thus the compact subsets of a cocountable space are
For the reality of the eigenvalues, one may initially allow a nonzero complex eigenvector with . Since is real symmetric, it is a Hermitian matrix, and
is real: the numerator equals its own complex conjugate and the denominator is positive. Once is real, a nonzero real or imaginary part of supplies a real eigenvector. We work with the real unit eigenvectors of the problem.
For two such eigenvectors, symmetry gives
Distinct eigenvalues therefore give zero dot product. Together with the prescribed unit lengths,
These vectors form an orthonormal basis of .
Expand a real unit vector as . Then , and its Rayleigh quotient is
Moreover,
Every coefficient on the right is strictly positive, so equality forces for . Equality occurs precisely along the top eigendirection:
To obtain a unit vector in using just , let and denote their first coordinates. If , take
Then and . Hence has first coordinate zero and unit length. If , simply take . In either case the Rayleigh quotient of the constructed vector is
The continuous quadratic form attains its maximum on the compact space , so
For , deletion of the first row and column gives , while . The spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices applied to identifies its largest eigenvalue with this maximum:
Combining the upper bound for every unit vector with the constructed lower bound proves
This is largest-eigenvalue interlacing for a principal submatrix: restricting a quadratic form to a coordinate hyperplane cannot exceed its old maximum, but leaves some direction in the span of the top two eigenvectors.
For a convex subset of a Banach space, weak closure equals norm closure. The Mazur theorem states that for every convex set ,
Since every bounded linear functional is norm-continuous, the weak topology is weaker than the norm topology, giving .
For the reverse inclusion, use this form of the Hahn-Banach separation theorem: if is a nonempty norm-closed convex set in a real normed vector space and , there is a continuous real-linear functional such that
Apply it to . In a complex Banach space, use the underlying real space; every continuous real-linear is the real part of the complex bounded linear functional . The separating strict inequality gives a neighbourhood open for the weak topology of disjoint from , so . The empty set case is immediate. This proves the Mazur theorem.
A weakly null sequence has disjoint convex blocks converging to zero in norm. If , then for every starting index ,
The Mazur theorem places in the norm closure of that tail convex hull. Thus a finite convex combination of vectors from any tail can have norm less than any prescribed .
Choose the convex blocks recursively. After selecting the previous terminal index , let , and choose a finite convex combination from with norm less than . Choose beyond its largest used index, padding the intervening coefficients and the final coefficient with zero. This ensures the printed strict condition as well as . Setting unused coefficients to zero yields
Therefore in norm. The recursive tail selection is what makes these convex blocks, rather than merely unrelated convex combinations.
Next suppose is separable and is bounded. Use the canonical embedding into the bidual , where . If , then . The Banach-Alaoglu theorem makes this ball compact in , and weak-star metrizability of the dual ball makes it metrizable because its predual is separable. A compact space that is a metric space is sequentially compact, so some subsequence satisfies
The limit need not belong to ; it is precisely the use of the bidual space that supplies compactness without assuming reflexivity.
For a convex block , every satisfies
Both and tend to , so
This is the useful convex-block cancellation of a weak-star limit; it does not require the limit to be a vector in .
The quotient sequence has approximate lifts in that are weakly null after passing to a subsequence. Let be the quotient map, with the quotient norm. Since , choose such that
This uses the infimum defining the quotient norm and does not assume that it is attained. By the preceding compactness argument, pass to a subsequence with a common weak-star limit in . Its quotient images form a weakly null sequence.
Apply the convex block construction to in the quotient Banach space. Using the same coefficients on gives convex blocks
Set . The convex-block cancellation of a weak-star limit proves , while
Thus the approximate weakly null lifting through a quotient is achieved with the required bound:
The definitions in a unital C-star algebra are
Thus a Hermitian element of a C-star algebra is self-adjoint, a Unitary element of a C-star algebra has inverse , and a Normal element of a C-star algebra commutes with its adjoint. We derive the needed C-star algebra facts directly from , as required.
First gives , and
gives ; applying the same argument to gives equality. Thus the involution is an isometry. For a Unitary element of a C-star algebra ,
The general Banach algebra spectrum bound gives for . Such a is nonzero, and the inverse spectral mapping theorem gives , so also . Hence
If , the convergent exponential series and the isometric involution give . These commuting exponentials multiply to , so is unitary for real . By the exponential spectral mapping theorem, if then . Taking gives , so
Only general Banach algebra spectral mapping theorem and the defining C-star identity were used.
Now prove spectral permanence for C-star algebras. Let be the norm-closed C-star subalgebra with the same identity. The algebraic inclusion always gives . For , both spectra lie in . If , choose nonreal . Since , each belongs to . By continuity of inversion in a Banach algebra, these inverses converge in to , which belongs to because is closed. Thus , proving equality for hermitian elements.
For the requested normal , suppose is invertible in . The element is hermitian and invertible in , so the equality just proved places in . Consequently
Since already has a two-sided inverse in , multiplying by that inverse gives . Hence its inverse belongs to , and
We need one more elementary consequence of the C-star identity: the spectral radius norm equality for normal elements. If , then . If is normal, commutativity of gives
Every power of is a Normal element of a C-star algebra. Induction gives . The general spectral radius formula therefore implies
The continuous functional calculus is the unique unital -homomorphism taking the coordinate function to . For bounded linear operators on a Hilbert space, the adjoint identity gives . Therefore
This proves the C-star identity for directly; completeness and submultiplicativity come from the operator norm. Let
Because is a normal operator, this is a commutative unital C-star algebra. Every element of is a Normal element of a C-star algebra, so the preceding norm identity says its Gelfand transform is isometric:
Here is the compact character space from the general Gelfand representation theorem for commutative Banach algebras.
Each algebra character preserves the involution. Indeed, write with hermitian; and similarly for , so . Therefore the continuous map
is injective: its value determines and hence its value on all the dense polynomials. It is surjective because the general character description of the spectrum gives , and spectral permanence for C-star algebras identifies this with . A continuous function that is a bijection from a compact space to a Hausdorff space is a homeomorphism, so we identify with .
Under this identification, the Gelfand transform sends to and to . Its image is an isometric, and therefore closed, unital self-adjoint subalgebra of . It separates points because it contains . The complex Stone-Weierstrass theorem makes the image dense, hence equal to all of . Inverting the Gelfand transform and including into gives
an isometric unital C-star homomorphism with .
To prove uniqueness without assuming automatic continuity of C-star homomorphisms, let be any other such map. Since every is normal, is normal. A unital algebra homomorphism preserves inverses, so
Using the normal-element norm identity yields . Thus is contractive. It agrees with on polynomials in , since both send them to the same polynomials in . These polynomials are dense by the Stone-Weierstrass theorem, so continuity proves . This establishes the continuous functional calculus with no unproved theorem specific to C-star algebras.
A disconnected spectrum gives a nontrivial closed invariant subspace. Write with nonempty and both open and closed in . The indicator function is continuous on , even though no such continuity is needed across the gap outside . Let . The continuous functional calculus gives
Its isometry gives and , so . The linear projection has closed range . Its range is nonzero and proper, and proves invariance. Since it also commutes with , the same subspace is reducing. This proves disconnected spectrum gives a reducing subspace.
Figure 1.
A disconnected spectrum and its continuous indicator, which produces a nontrivial reducing projection
.
The figure can be realized without any eigenvalues: take , where is planar area on the two closed disks, and let multiply by . Its adjoint multiplies by , so it is a normal operator. An eigenvector for would be supported on the area-zero singleton , hence would be zero in . Outside , multiplication by is a bounded inverse to . For , normalized indicator functions of have , excluding a bounded inverse. Thus its spectrum is exactly . The linear projection in the figure multiplies by , and its range consists of functions supported on the left disk.
Use the canonical embedding into the bidual . It is an isometry by the Hahn-Banach theorem. The weak-star topology , restricted to , is exactly the weak topology : both are determined by the same scalar evaluations . Therefore if is a weakly compact set, is compact in the Hausdorff weak-star topology of , and hence is closed for the weak-star topology. This explains the first assertion without treating the whole embedded space as weak-star closed.
For a bounded linear operator , its Banach-space adjoint is
For each , the scalar evaluation is weak-star continuous on . These are exactly the defining evaluations of the weak-star topology on , so is weak-star-to-weak-star continuous. Equivalently, if , then for every .
The Goldstine theorem states that is dense in for , where the balls are closed unit balls. The Banach-Alaoglu theorem states that for any normed vector space , the closed dual unit ball is compact for . Neither assertion claims norm compactness or, in general, sequential compactness.
For the weakly compact operator equivalences below, identify and with their canonical images only when stated. In particular, the range condition means . We shall prove , . The key identities, obtained by evaluating on , are
Let be an open cover of in its subspace topology. Write with each open in . Since is a closed set, is open, and is an open cover of the compact space . A finite subcover restricts to a finite subcover of . Hence the closed subset is compact.
If is an open cover of in its subspace topology, the inverse images under the restricted continuous map form an open cover of . Take a finite subcover; the corresponding cover . Thus the continuous image is compact. Neither argument assumes a Hausdorff space or asserts that a compact set must be closed set in an arbitrary topological space.