The weak topology on a normed vector space is , the coarsest topology making every bounded linear functional continuous. A neighbourhood base at is given by finitely many inequalities , with . In the complex case, separation uses real parts of bounded linear functionals.
Mazur theorem states that the weak closure of a convex set equals its closure in the norm topology. The weak topology is coarser than the norm topology, so the norm closure is contained in the weak closure. Conversely, if is outside the norm closure of a convex set , the Hahn-Banach separation theorem gives and with . The corresponding weak topology neighbourhood of misses , so is outside its weak closure. This proves Mazur theorem, including the empty-set case. In particular, if converges weakly to , then is in the weak closure of every tail and therefore in the norm closure of its convex hull. Choosing a finite convex combination of the th tail within of proves the usual Mazur lemma formulation as well.
The weak-star topology on the continuous dual space is : convergence means pointwise convergence on , and a neighbourhood base prescribes finitely many evaluation inequalities. The Banach-Alaoglu theorem states that the closed unit ball of is compact in this weak-star topology, even if is incomplete. Embed this closed unit ball into
where or . Each factor is compact, so is compact by the Tychonoff theorem. Inside , the equations and define a closed set. Every such point defines a linear functional satisfying , hence belongs to the closed unit ball of . Thus this image is closed in . The product topology on it is exactly the weak-star topology, proving Banach-Alaoglu theorem. Evaluations also separate its points, so the weak-star topology is Hausdorff.
For the canonical embedding into the bidual , we have . Restricting all evaluations at therefore gives exactly . Thus the induced subspace topology is the weak topology on .
Now identify with . Let be a bounded convex set, write for its norm closure in , and let be its weak-star topology closure in . Boundedness places in a multiple of the closed unit ball of , so is compact by Banach-Alaoglu theorem. The preceding subspace topology identification and Mazur theorem give
If is a weakly compact set, its image in the Hausdorff weak-star topology is compact and therefore closed. It contains , so . Conversely, if , the displayed identity gives , and its compactness is precisely weak compactness in . Hence . This argument also covers .
For a bounded linear operator , its Banach-space adjoint is , defined by . Evaluation at any fixed is thus evaluation at after applying . Each is continuous in the relevant weak-star topology, proving that is weak-star continuous. Applying the same result to shows that is weak-star continuous. Direct evaluation gives
Use for the closed unit ball; using the open ball gives the same norm closure of . Goldstine theorem says that is weak-star dense in . Put . It is compact and closed in the weak-star topology by Banach-Alaoglu theorem and the established continuity. It contains . Conversely, Goldstine theorem gives, for every , a net from converging weak-star to ; its image converges weak-star to . Consequently
Apply the preceding bounded convex set criterion in , and then scale the closed unit ball. We obtain the bidual characterization of weakly compact operators:
The canonical embedding into the bidual on the right specifies exactly which copy of is intended.
Identify with the Boolean hypercube , with coordinatewise multiplication and normalized Haar measure assigning mass to each point. Its Bernoulli function is a Rademacher random variable. The Walsh functions on a hypercube are the Walsh characters , indexed by all subsets , including . Independence of the sign coordinates gives . There are characters, equal to the dimension of , so they form an orthonormal basis.
Flipping coordinate negates exactly when . Thus the coordinate-flip generator on a hypercube satisfies
For , Parseval identity gives . Equivalently its Dirichlet form of a Markov chain is
where flips coordinate .
Set and . Since , its Walsh expansion contains only sets of even size. Every nonconstant such set has , giving the even-function spectral gap on a hypercube
At each the Hahn-Banach theorem supplies a real supporting linear functional of norm at most one with ; for a complex normed space use the real part of a complex norming functional. At take . Convexity of the norm gives . Since , sum these inequalities to get . Therefore . Combining the two bounds yields the sharp Rademacher second-moment inequality
No smoothness of the norm is required. The constant is sharp: two equal nonzero real coefficients give modulus or with equal probabilities. This is the second-versus-first moment case of the Kahane-Khintchine inequality for arbitrary normed vector spaces.
For the complex-circle assertion, write each independent Steinhaus random variable as , where is uniform on and all quadrant signs are independent. Conditional on the angles, is a Rademacher sum with complex coefficients and . Its conditional second moment is , independent of the angles. The preceding inequality gives its conditional first moment at least . Average over the angles and square to obtain the Steinhaus first-moment lower bound
Invertibility is stable under sufficiently small perturbations, and inversion is continuous. Let be the identity of the complex unital Banach algebra , with its submultiplicative algebra norm. For , completeness makes the Neumann series
converge in . Multiplying either side of the partial sums by gives , which tends to , proving that the sum is a two-sided inverse.
Fix , the group of invertible elements of a Banach algebra. If , then
so the Neumann series makes invertible. This proves that is open. It also gives a local bound
We retain here so the estimate does not silently assume a normalized identity. The inverse identity
then implies
This proves continuity of inversion in a Banach algebra.
For a unital Banach algebra, the spectrum of an element is
For a nonunital Banach algebra, use its unitization of an algebra with multiplication and norm
It is a unital Banach algebra, with identity , and define . In this nonunital convention, belongs to the spectrum: the scalar coordinate of is zero, so it cannot be invertible in .
The spectrum is nonempty and compact. It suffices to work in a nonzero unital Banach algebra, since unitization reduces the other case to this one. The group of invertible elements of a Banach algebra is open, so the complement of the spectrum of an element is open. For , the Neumann series gives
Thus is closed and lies in , hence is compact.
For nonemptiness of the Banach-algebra spectrum, suppose that were defined on all of . At any , factoring gives a locally convergent power series
For every bounded linear functional , the scalar function is therefore entire. The bound at infinity makes it bounded outside a disk, while continuity makes it bounded on the disk. By the Liouville theorem, it is constant; since it tends to zero at infinity, it is identically zero. The version of the Hahn-Banach theorem used here says that bounded linear functionals separate points of a normed vector space: if , there is with . Consequently for every , contradicting . This proves the assertion.
Every nonzero complex unital normed division algebra is algebraically and topologically isomorphic to . This is the Gelfand-Mazur theorem; completeness is not needed in its statement. Let be a normed division algebra, and take its completion of a normed space using the algebra norm to obtain a unital Banach algebra . Submultiplicativity extends multiplication continuously to the completion, and the original identity remains its identity.
For , the spectrum of an element of in contains some . If in , the division-algebra assumption supplies an inverse in , which is still an inverse in . This contradicts . Therefore . The map is a bijective complex algebra homomorphism, and
It and its inverse are continuous; when , it is an isometry.
A complete algebra norm on a function algebra dominates the supremum norm, even before continuity of point evaluations is known. Let be the given algebra of functions. Form the same artificial unitization even if already has an identity. For each , the algebraic map
is a unital multiplicative complex linear functional. No continuity has been assumed. Since , the element cannot be invertible: applying to an inverse equation would give . Hence , and the spectrum bound already proved yields
Taking the supremum proves the supremum bound for a complete function-algebra norm:
In particular every is bounded, and every point evaluation is a bounded linear functional of norm at most . This is an instance of automatic continuity of characters: a character of an algebra on a Banach algebra is bounded because its value at any element belongs to that element's spectrum.