Space of bounded continuous functions from $\mathbb R$ to $\mathbb C$

functional-analysishilbert-spacesreal-analysis

Let $V$ denote the space of bounded continuous functions from $\mathbb R$ to $\mathbb C$. Enumerate the rationals by $r_1,r_2,\ldots$. Define the inner product on $V$ by
$$\langle f,g \rangle = \sum \frac{1}{2^k}f(r_k) \overline{g(r_k)}$$

The question is whether $V$ endowed with this inner product becomes a Hilbert space.

It is fairly easy to check the above operation is indeed an inner product, but I got stuck about the completeness part. Any help is appreciated.

Best Answer

This is not a Hilbert space. Define $$ f_n(x) = \max(0, \min(nx,1)). $$ Then $f_n(x) \to 1$ for $x>0$ and $f_n(x)=0$ for all $x<0$. However $(f_n)$ is a Cauchy sequence in the given norm. Let $n>m\ge1$. Then $$ \|f_n-f_m\|^2 = \sum_{k: \ r_k \in (0,\frac1m)} 2^{-k} |f_n(r_k)-f_m(r_k)|^2 \le \sum_{k: \ r_k \in (0,\frac1m)} 2^{-k}. $$ It remains to show that the right-hand side converges to zero for $m\to\infty$. Take $g$ with $g(x)=1$ for all $x$. Then $$ 1 = \|g\|^2 \ge \sum_{k: \ r_k \in (0,1)} 2^{-k} = \sum_{i=1}^\infty \sum_{k: \ r_k \in [\frac1{i+1},\frac1i)} 2^{-k}. $$ The sum $\sum_{k: \ r_k \in (0,\frac1m)} 2^{-k}$ is a tail of this converging series, hence $\sum_{k: \ r_k \in (0,\frac1m)} 2^{-k} \to 0$ for $m\to\infty$. Thus, $(f_n)$ is Cauchy. The sequence converges pointwise on the rationals to a function that cannot be extended to be a continuous function.

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