Weak-star topology

The weak-star topology $\sigma (X^{\ast },X)$ is pointwise convergence of functionals on $X$. If $X$ is nonreflexive, it is strictly weaker than the weak topology $\sigma (X^{\ast },X^{\ast \ast })$ on $X^{\ast }$.

If $X$ is separable, the weak-star topology on $B_{X^{\ast }}$ is metrizable. For a dense sequence $(x_n)$ in $B_X$, a compatible metric is obtained by summing bounded multiples of $2^{-n}|f(x_n)-g(x_n)|$.

For a weak-star compact set $K\subseteq X^{\ast }$, its Szlenk derivation at scale $\epsilon >0$ isIt removes points having a relatively weak-star open neighbourhood of norm diameter at most $\epsilon$.

If $X^{\ast }$ is separable and $K$ is a nonempty weak-star closed subset of $B_{X^{\ast }}$, then $K_{\epsilon }^{\prime }$ is a proper subset of $K$ for every $\epsilon >0$. Metrizability produces sequences witnessing membership in the derivative, while a Baire-category argument applied to a universal weakly null sequence yields the strict inclusion.