Completeness of normed linear space

banach-spacescomplete-spacesnormed-spaces

I came across this question and I had no idea how to proceed.

Prove or disprove (l1, ||.||2) is a complete normed linear space.

Here l1 refers to the vector space of infinite sequences of real numbers X = (x1,x2,…) with finite norm ||X||= $\sum_{j=1}^\infty |x_j|$, and ||.||2 is the two norm.
I have been able to prove that lp with p-norm (and thus trivially l2 with 2-norm) is complete. Any help will be appreciated.

Best Answer

To show that the space is complete we need to show that every Cauchy sequence in the space converges to a limit in the space. Here is a counter-example.

Consider the sequence $\lbrace S_n\rbrace$ defined by

$S_n=(1,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{3},..,\frac{1}{n},0,0,...)$. The limit of this sequence is $S=(1,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{3},..,\frac{1}{n},\frac{1}{n+1},...)$.

Now the sum $\sum^\infty_{n=1}\frac{1}{n^2}=\frac{\pi^2}{6}$ is convergent, so the partial sums $\sum^n_{i=1}\frac{1}{i^2}$ form a Cauchy sequence (in $\mathbb{R}$).

It follows that the sequence $\lbrace S_n\rbrace$ is Cauchy in $||.||_2$, since if $m>n$, $$||S_m-S_n||_2=\sqrt{(\frac{1}{n+1})^2+(\frac{1}{n+2})^2+..+(\frac{1}{m})^2}<\sqrt{\frac{\pi^2}{6}-\sum^\infty_{n=1}\frac{1}{n^2}}\to0$$ as $n\to\infty$.

For each $n$, $||S_n||_1=\sum^n_{i=1}\frac{1}{i}$ is a finite sum, and so $S_n \in$ l$^1$. However the sum $\sum^\infty_{n=1}\frac{1}{n}$ is not convergent. Hence $||S||_1$ is infinite and so $S\notin$ l$^1$.

The sequence $\lbrace S_n\rbrace$ is therefore a Cauchy sequence in $($l$^1,||.||_2)$ with no limit in $($l$^1,||.||_2)$. The space is therefore not complete.