Past exam of the functional analysis II course of the University of Oxford 2023 3 b i Solution 2026-10-25
Here the intended space must consist of bounded linear operators, namely Hilbert-Schmidt operators. The printed restriction to “all linear mappings” is insufficient. To see this, choose outside the algebraic linear span of , for example . Extend the linearly independent family to a Hamel basis. Define a linear functional on this Hamel basis by and zero on every other basis vector, and extend it linearly. Then the everywhere-defined linear operator satisfiesIts printed column sum is zero although . More explicitly, but for every . Thus is discontinuous; it has no everywhere-defined adjoint operator of the bounded kind used in the question. This proves finite column sum does not imply boundedness. We use in the intended argument below.
By the Parseval identity for a Hilbertian basis for , followed by the adjoint operator identity and then the Parseval identity for a Hilbertian basis for ,The interchange is valid by Tonelli's theorem for nonnegative double series, even before finiteness is known. Repeating with shows that the right side also equals . HenceIn particular the Hilbert-Schmidt norm is independent of the Hilbertian basis, and .