If a Banach space has separable dual and is a quotient by a closed subspace, every weakly null sequence in the quotient's closed unit ball has a subsequence with approximate weakly null lifts of norm at most . Choose representatives of norm below , pass to a common bidual weak-star limit, and subtract convex blocks whose quotient images tend to zero in norm. Convex-block cancellation of a weak-star limit gives weak nullity and the triangle inequality gives the bound .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 106 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
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 thatApply 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 yieldsTherefore 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 satisfiesThe 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 satisfiesBoth and tend to , soThis 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 thatThis 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 blocksSet . The convex-block cancellation of a weak-star limit proves , whileThus the approximate weakly null lifting through a quotient is achieved with the required bound: