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No. Reuse the diagonal operator on sequence space $L(x_n)=(x_n/n)$ on ${\ell }^2$. Its kernel is zero, hence finite-dimensional. Let $y^{(N)}$ be the truncation of $(1/n)$ to its first $N$ coordinates. Each $y^{(N)}=L(1,\dots ,1,0,\dots )$ lies in the range, while $y^{(N)}\to (1/n)$ in ${\ell }^2$. The limit is not in the range because its formal preimage is not square summable. Thus finite-dimensional kernel does not imply closed range. Equivalently the unit vectors $e_n\in (\ker L{)}^{\perp }$ violate every positive closed-range bound on the kernel complement.

First let $L$ be a bounded linear operator on $H$ satisfying the symmetric positive-definiteness convention in part (a). For any direction $w\in H$, expansion of the quadratic functional givesThus vanishing of the first variation in every direction is precisely the weak equation $⟨Lu,w⟩=⟨f,w⟩$ for every $w$. In this whole-space bounded-operator setting it is equivalent to $Lu=f$, the Euler-Lagrange equation.

If $u$ solves that equation, set $v=u+w$. The linear terms cancel:with equality only when $v=u$. Hence the weak solution is the unique global minimizer. Conversely, any minimizer has zero first variation, and therefore solves the weak equation. For a symmetric bounded bilinear form $B$ on a form space $V$, exactly the same calculation gives $I(v)=B(v,v)-2\ell (v)$ and $B(u,w)=\ell (w)$ for every $w\in V$; it does not require an unbounded differential operator to map every $v\in V$ into $H$.

Existence for every $f$ requires an extra hypothesis if “positive definite” means only strict positivity. The coercive operator bound makes the form coercive, so the Lax-Milgram theorem supplies existence and uniqueness. Without that bound, the diagonal operator on sequence space $L(x_n)=(x_n/n)$ on ${\ell }^2$ is symmetric and strictly positive, but $f=(1/n)$ belongs to ${\ell }^2$ and its formal inverse $(1,1,\dots )$ does not. Thus strict positivity alone proves uniqueness and the minimizing property of a solution when one exists, not existence for all $f$.

For the diagonal operator on sequence space,Equality holds at the first coordinate vector, so $\Vert K\Vert =1$ and $K$ is a bounded linear operator. Every diagonal entry is nonzero, giving the null space $\mathcal{N}(K)=\{0\}$. A datum has a preimage exactly when its weighted coordinates belong to the l2 sequence space. HenceFinite sequences lie in the range and are dense in ${\ell }^2$, so $\mathcal{R}(K{)}^{\perp }=\{0\}$ andThe sequence $f^{(n)}=e_n/n$ converges to zero in the data norm, but $K^{†}{f}^{(n)}=e_n$ has norm one. Thus $K^{†}$ is unbounded and discontinuous. In particular the dense range is not closed; the datum $f_j=1/j$ also proves that it is a proper subset of ${\ell }^2$.

Let $e_m$ denote the sequence with a one in coordinate $m$ and zeros elsewhere.

For $T_1$, one has $\Vert e_m{\Vert }_p=1$ but $\Vert T_1{e}_m{\Vert }_p=m$ for every $p$, including $p=\infty$. Thus $T_1$ is unbounded for every $p$.

For $T_2$, the sequence $T_2{e}_m$ has entries $-(m-1)$ and $m$ in coordinates $m-1$ and $m$, respectively. Hence $\Vert T_2{e}_m{\Vert }_p\ge m$, so $T_2$ is also unbounded for every $p$.

For $T_3$, coordinatewise division givesfor every $1\le p\le \infty$. Thus $T_3$ is a bounded diagonal operator on sequence space for every $p$.

For $T_4$, write $a=(n^{-1/2}{)}_{n\ge 1}$. Then $T_{4}x=x_{1}a$, and coordinate evaluation satisfies $|x_1|\le \Vert x{\Vert }_p$. By the p-series criterion, $a\in {\ell }^p$ exactly when $p>2$, while $a\in {\ell }^{\infty }$. Therefore $T_4$ is bounded precisely forFor $p\le 2$, even $T_4{e}_1$ does not belong to ${\ell }^p$.

For $T_5$, let $q$ be the Holder conjugate exponent of $p$. Holder inequality gives, for finite $p$,and consequentlyFor $p=\infty$,Thus $T_5$ is bounded for every $1\le p\le \infty$. Altogether,

If $B={\sup }_j|d_j|<\infty$, then for every $f\in {\ell }^2$,so the diagonal operator on sequence space is bounded. Conversely, for the standard unit vector $e_j$,so boundedness of $D$ implies ${\sup }_j|d_j|\le \Vert D\Vert <\infty$.