A generalization of finite-dimensional Euclidean spaces different from Hilbert spaces
Inmathematics,nuclear spaces aretopological vector spaces that can be viewed as a generalization of finite-dimensionalEuclidean spaces and share many of their desirable properties. Nuclear spaces are however quite different fromHilbert spaces, another generalization of finite-dimensional Euclidean spaces. They were introduced byAlexander Grothendieck.
The topology on nuclear spaces can be defined by a family ofseminorms whoseunit balls decrease rapidly in size. Vector spaces whose elements are "smooth" in some sense tend to be nuclear spaces; a typical example of a nuclear space is the set ofsmooth functions on acompact manifold. All finite-dimensional vector spaces are nuclear. There are noBanach spaces that are nuclear, except for the finite-dimensional ones. In practice a sort of converse to this is often true: if a "naturally occurring" topological vector space isnot a Banach space, then there is a good chance that it is nuclear.
This result is false if one replaces the space with (which is areflexive space that is even isomorphic to its own strong dual space) and replaces with the dual of this space.[2] Why does such a nice result hold for the space of distributions and test functions but not for theHilbert space (which is generally considered one of the "nicest" TVSs)? This question led Grothendieck to discover nuclear spaces,nuclear maps, and theinjective tensor product.
Another set of motivating examples comes directly from geometry and smooth manifold theory[3]appendix 2. Given smooth manifolds and a locally convex Hausdorff topological vector space, then there are the following isomorphisms of nuclear spaces
This section lists some of the more common definitions of a nuclear space. The definitions below are all equivalent. Note that some authors use a more restrictive definition of a nuclear space, by adding the condition that the space should also be aFréchet space. (This means that the space is complete and the topology is given by acountable family of seminorms.)
The following definition was used by Grothendieck to define nuclear spaces.[4]
Definition 0: Let be a locally convex topological vector space. Then is nuclear if for every locally convex space the canonical vector space embedding is an embedding of TVSs whose image is dense in the codomain (where the domain is theprojective tensor product and the codomain is the space of all separately continuous bilinear forms on endowed with thetopology of uniform convergence on equicontinuous subsets).
We start by recalling some background. Alocally convex topological vector space has a topology that is defined by some family ofseminorms. For every seminorm, the unit ball is a closed convex symmetric neighborhood of the origin, and conversely every closed convex symmetric neighborhood of 0 is the unit ball of some seminorm. (For complex vector spaces, the condition "symmetric" should be replaced by "balanced".) If is a seminorm on then denotes theBanach space given bycompleting theauxiliary normed space using the seminorm There is a natural map (not necessarily injective).
If is another seminorm, larger than (pointwise as a function on), then there is a natural map from to such that the first map factors as These maps are always continuous. The space is nuclear when a stronger condition holds, namely that these maps arenuclear operators. The condition of being a nuclear operator is subtle, and more details are available in the corresponding article.
Definition 1: Anuclear space is a locally convex topological vector space such that for every seminorm we can find a larger seminorm so that the natural map isnuclear.
Informally, this means that whenever we are given the unit ball of some seminorm, we can find a "much smaller" unit ball of another seminorm inside it, or that every neighborhood of 0 contains a "much smaller" neighborhood. It is not necessary to check this condition for all seminorms; it is sufficient to check it for a set of seminorms that generate the topology, in other words, a set of seminorms that are asubbase for the topology.
Instead of using arbitrary Banach spaces and nuclear operators, we can give a definition in terms ofHilbert spaces andtrace class operators, which are easier to understand. (On Hilbert spaces nuclear operators are often called trace class operators.)We will say that a seminorm is aHilbert seminorm if is a Hilbert space, or equivalently if comes from a sesquilinear positive semidefinite form on
Definition 2: Anuclear space is a topological vector space with a topology defined by a family of Hilbert seminorms, such that for every Hilbert seminorm we can find a larger Hilbert seminorm so that the natural map from to istrace class.
Some authors prefer to useHilbert–Schmidt operators rather than trace class operators. This makes little difference, because every trace class operator is Hilbert–Schmidt, and the product of two Hilbert–Schmidt operators is of trace class.
Definition 3: Anuclear space is a topological vector space with a topology defined by a family of Hilbert seminorms, such that for every Hilbert seminorm we can find a larger Hilbert seminorm so that the natural map from to is Hilbert–Schmidt.
If we are willing to use the concept of a nuclear operator from an arbitrary locally convex topological vector space to a Banach space, we can give shorter definitions as follows:
Definition 4: Anuclear space is a locally convex topological vector space such that for every seminorm the natural map from isnuclear.
Definition 5: Anuclear space is a locally convex topological vector space such that every continuous linear map to a Banach space is nuclear.
Grothendieck used a definition similar to the following one:
Definition 6: Anuclear space is a locally convex topological vector space such that for every locally convex topological vector space the natural map from the projective to the injective tensor product of and is an isomorphism.
In fact it is sufficient to check this just for Banach spaces or even just for the single Banach space of absolutely convergent series.
Let be a Hausdorff locally convex space. Then the following are equivalent:
is nuclear;
for any locally convex space the canonical vector space embedding is an embedding of TVSs whose image is dense in the codomain;
for anyBanach space the canonical vector space embedding is a surjective isomorphism of TVSs;[5]
for any locally convex Hausdorff space the canonical vector space embedding is a surjective isomorphism of TVSs;[5]
the canonical embedding of in is a surjective isomorphism of TVSs;[6]
the canonical map of is a surjective TVS-isomorphism.[6]
for any seminorm we can find a larger seminorm so that the natural map isnuclear;
for any seminorm we can find a larger seminorm so that the canonical injection is nuclear;[5]
the topology of is defined by a family of Hilbert seminorms, such that for any Hilbert seminorm we can find a larger Hilbert seminorm so that the natural map istrace class;
has a topology defined by a family of Hilbert seminorms, such that for any Hilbert seminorm we can find a larger Hilbert seminorm so that the natural map is Hilbert–Schmidt;
Suppose that and are locally convex space with is nuclear.
If is nuclear then the vector space of continuous linear maps endowed with the topology of simple convergence is a nuclear space.[9]
If is asemi-reflexive space whose strong dual is nuclear and if is nuclear then the vector space of continuous linear maps (endowed with the topology of uniform convergence on bounded subsets of ) is a nuclear space.[11]
If is a set of any cardinality, then and (with theproduct topology) are both nuclear spaces.[12]
A relatively simple infinite-dimensional example of a nuclear space is the space of all rapidly decreasing sequences ("Rapidly decreasing" means that is bounded for any polynomial). For each real number it is possible to define a norm byIf the completion in this norm is then there is a natural map from whenever and this is nuclear whenever essentially because the series is then absolutely convergent. In particular for each norm this is possible to find another norm, say such that the map is nuclear. So the space is nuclear.
The space of smooth functions on any compact manifold is nuclear.
TheSchwartz space of smooth functions on for which the derivatives of all orders are rapidly decreasing is a nuclear space.
The space of entire holomorphic functions on the complex plane is nuclear.
Nuclear spaces are in many ways similar to finite-dimensional spaces and have many of their good properties.
Every finite-dimensional Hausdorff space is nuclear.
A Fréchet space is nuclear if and only if its strong dual is nuclear.
Everybounded subset of a nuclear space is precompact (recall that a set is precompact if its closure in the completion of the space is compact).[13] This is analogous to theHeine-Borel theorem. In contrast, no infinite-dimensional normed space has this property (although the finite-dimensional spaces do).
Every closed equicontinuous subset of the dual of a nuclear space is a compact metrizable set (for the strong dual topology).
Every nuclear space is a subspace of a product of Hilbert spaces.
Every nuclear space admits a basis of seminorms consisting of Hilbert norms.
Every nuclear space is a Schwartz space.
Every nuclear space possesses the approximation property.[15]
Any subspace and any quotient space by a closed subspace of a nuclear space is nuclear.
If is nuclear and is any locally convex topological vector space, then the natural map from the projective tensor product ofA and to the injective tensor product is an isomorphism. Roughly speaking this means that there is only one sensible way to define the tensor product. This property characterizes nuclear spaces
In the theory of measures on topological vector spaces, a basic theorem states that any continuouscylinder set measure on the dual of a nuclear Fréchet space automatically extends to aRadon measure. This is useful because it is often easy to construct cylinder set measures on topological vector spaces, but these are not good enough for most applications unless they are Radon measures (for example, they are not even countably additive in general).
Schwartz kernel theorem:[9] Suppose that is nuclear, is locally convex, and is a continuous bilinear form on Then originates from a space of the form where and are suitable equicontinuous subsets of and Equivalently, is of the form,where and each of and are equicontinuous. Furthermore, these sequences can be taken to be null sequences (that is, convergent to 0) in and respectively.
Given a characteristic functional on a nuclear space theBochner–Minlos theorem (afterSalomon Bochner andRobert Adol'fovich Minlos) guarantees the existence and uniqueness of a correspondingprobability measure on the dual space such that
In particular, if is the nuclear spacewhere are Hilbert spaces, the Bochner–Minlos theorem guarantees the existence of a probability measure with the characteristic function that is, the existence of the Gaussian measure on thedual space. Such measure is calledwhite noise measure. When is the Schwartz space, the correspondingrandom element is arandomdistribution.
Astrongly nuclear space is a locally convex topological vector space such that for any seminorm there exists a larger seminorm so that the natural map is a stronglynuclear.
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