The completion of a normed vector space.

banach-spacesdual-spacesfunctional-analysis

Let $X$ be a normed vector space over a field $\mathbb{K}=\mathbb{R}$ or $\mathbb{C}$. Then, there is a Banach space $\widehat{X}$ and an isometric mapping $u:X \to \widehat{X}$ such that $\overline{u(X)}=\widehat{X}$. The set$\widehat{X}$ is called the completion of $X$.

I didn't understand the proof with the bidual space, can someone explain it for me.

Best Answer

Sure. By Hahn-Banach theorem, we have that for any $x\in X$ it is $$\|x\|=\sup\{|\phi(x)|: \phi\in X^*, \|\phi\|=1\}.$$ If this is not known to you, I can add some details, but I recommend you do this as an exercise.

Now consider the mapping $u:X\to X^{**}$ that maps $x$ to the element $u_x:X^*\to\mathbb{C}$ ($X^{**}$ is the dual of the dual, so its elements are bounded linear maps from $X^*$ to $\mathbb{C})$ that is defined as follows: $u_x(\phi)=\phi(x)$ (this makes sense: $x\in X$ and $\phi\in X^*$, so $\phi(x)\in\mathbb{C}$).

Fix $x\in X$. We need to show that $u_x\in X^{**}$. It is immediate that $u_x$ is linear, as $u_x(\lambda_1\phi_1+\lambda_2\phi_2)=(\lambda_1\phi_1+\lambda_2\phi_2)(x)=\lambda_1\phi_1(x)+\lambda_2\phi_2(x)=\lambda_1u_x(\phi_1)+\lambda_2u_x(\phi_2)$. To see that $u_x$ is bounded on $X^{*}$, note that $|u_x(\phi)|=|\phi(x)|\leq\|\phi\|\|x\|$, which is of the form $c\|\phi\|$. So $u_x\in X^{**}$ with $\|u_x\|\leq\|x\|$.

Actually the 1st observation shows that $\|u_x\|=\|x\|$. Now it is immediate that $u:X\to X^{**}$ is linear. Since we observed that $\|u_x\|=\|x\|$, the map $u$ is an isometry. So set $\hat{X}=\overline{u(X)}$, the closure being taken in the norm of $X^{**}$. Do you see why $\hat{X}$ satisfies all those you mention?