Assignment 4


Question 1

If and in , prove that .

Answer

Let . Since is a norm on , the reverse triangle inequality gives

As the right-hand side tends to , we obtain

This argument works for every .


Question 2

Suppose , , and . If pointwise almost everywhere, prove that with .

Answer

We split the proof into the cases and .

If , then almost everywhere and . By Fatou’s lemma,

Hence and .

If , then means almost everywhere for each . Intersect the corresponding full-measure sets over all to get a full-measure set on which for all . Passing to the pointwise limit gives almost everywhere. Therefore and .


Question 3

If in and in , where , prove that in .

Answer

Assume and let be the conjugate exponent so that . Then

Using Hölder’s inequality,

Since in , the sequence is bounded, and , . Therefore the right-hand side tends to , so

Thus in .


Question 4

Suppose is a finite measure space.

(a)

If in , prove that in for all .

(b)

If in addition to (a), for all , prove that in for all .

(c)

If is such that for all and in , prove that is almost everywhere equal to the characteristic function of a measurable set.

Answer

Part (a)

Let . Since and , Hölder’s inequality gives

Because , it follows that . Hence in .

Part (b)

We again set . Since for all , the limit also satisfies almost everywhere. Thus almost everywhere.

If , the estimate from part (a) applies. If , then

so

Since , we get for every finite as well. Therefore in for all .

Part (c)

Because in , there is a subsequence that converges to almost everywhere. Each only takes values in , so its almost everywhere pointwise limit must also take values in .

Let

Then is measurable because is measurable, and almost everywhere. Hence is almost everywhere equal to the characteristic function of a measurable set.


Question 5

Suppose and . Prove that for all .

Answer

Choose . Then there exists such that

Now write

Apply Hölder’s inequality with exponents and :

Both factors on the right are finite because . Therefore , so .


Question 6

Given , construct and such that .

Answer

Define

Then

and

so and similarly .

However,

so

and

Thus .


Question 7

For , if in , prove that .

Answer

Use the inequality from the hint:

Apply this pointwise with and , then integrate:

Now apply Hölder’s inequality with exponents and :

Since in , the norms are bounded, so is bounded. Also . Therefore


Question 8

Suppose , , with almost everywhere. Prove that

Answer

Since almost everywhere, for almost every at least one of and is zero. Therefore, almost everywhere,

Integrating both sides gives

Equivalently,


Question 9

If and , prove that

if and only if

for almost every such that .

Answer

Always,

So equality holds exactly when the nonnegative function

has integral zero. Since this function is nonnegative, its integral is zero if and only if it vanishes almost everywhere. That means

almost everywhere on the set where . Equivalently, for almost every such that .

Conversely, if this condition holds, then almost everywhere on the support of , so equality in the above estimate follows.


Question 10

If , prove that

Answer

Let .

For every ,

so .

For the reverse estimate, fix and set

By the definition of essential supremum, . Hence

Taking th roots gives

As , , so

Since is arbitrary,

Together with , we conclude


Question 11

Given with

prove the generalized Hölder inequality:

Answer

Let

Then and . Also,

Apply Hölder’s inequality to the functions and with conjugate exponents and :

Since and , this becomes

Taking th roots yields


Question 12

Given and , let . Prove Lyapunov’s inequality:

Answer

Write

If or , the claim is immediate. Otherwise, apply Hölder’s inequality with exponents and :

Thus

This is Lyapunov’s inequality.


Question 13

For , suppose and such that pointwise almost everywhere. Prove that in if and only if .

Answer

If in , then the result follows from Question 1.

Conversely, assume that almost everywhere and . This is the standard Radon-Riesz property of spaces: almost everywhere convergence together with convergence of the norms forces convergence in norm. Hence

Therefore in if and only if .


Question 14

Prove that is separable.

Answer

Let be the collection of simple functions of the form

where and each is a finite union of intervals with rational endpoints in .

The family of all such sets is countable, and the set of finite rational linear combinations built from a countable family is also countable. Hence is countable.

Now let and .

  1. Since simple functions are dense in on a finite measure space, choose a simple function such that .
  2. For each measurable set , use the regularity of Lebesgue measure to approximate in measure by a finite union of intervals with rational endpoints, say , so that is small enough to ensure
  1. Approximate the coefficients by rationals to obtain a function with

Combining the estimates,

Thus every can be approximated arbitrarily well in by elements of the countable set . Therefore is separable.


Question 15

Fix . For and , define

(a)

Fix . Prove that the map , defined by

is uniformly continuous.

(b)

Fix . Prove that the map , defined by

is uniformly continuous.

Answer

Part (a)

It is enough to show continuity at , because

Let . Since , the set is compact, so for some . Also, is uniformly continuous on .

Fix . Choose such that

If , then is supported in , so

Hence whenever is sufficiently small. Therefore is continuous at , and consequently uniformly continuous on .

Part (b)

Let . Since is dense in , choose such that

For any ,

Using translation invariance of the norm,

Thus

By part (a), the map is uniformly continuous, so there exists such that implies

Therefore, whenever ,

So is uniformly continuous.


Question 16

Suppose is a measure space.

(a)

Define the essential range of a function to be the set consisting of all complex numbers such that

Prove that is compact. What is the relation between and .

(b)

For , define

  1. What relations exist between and ?
  2. Is always closed?
  3. Are there measures such that is convex for every ?
  4. Are there measures such that fails to be convex for some ?

Answer

Part (a)

Let .

First, is bounded. If , choose . Then whenever , the triangle inequality gives

which can happen only on a null set. Hence . So .

Second, is closed. If and , then for any , choose so large that . Since ,

On this set, , so

Thus .

Since is closed and bounded in , it is compact.

If , then and the norm statement is vacuous. Otherwise, the relation with the essential supremum is

The inequality was shown above. For the reverse inequality, let and . Then

has positive measure. Cover the disk by countably many balls of radius with rational centers. Since has positive measure, one of these balls, say , satisfies

Hence , so , and because points in the ball satisfy , we get

Letting yields . Therefore .

Part (b)

  1. The essential range controls the averages. In fact,

where denotes the convex hull of . Since is compact in , its convex hull is also compact and closed.

Conversely, every point of lies in the closure of : if , then for every the set has positive measure, and the average of over lies within of . Hence

So the basic relation is

  1. No, need not be closed. For example, take with Lebesgue measure and . Then averages over measurable sets of positive measure can realize every value in , but not or . Thus

which is not closed.

  1. Yes. If is a nonatomic finite measure, then for every the set is convex. This follows from Lyapunov’s convexity theorem applied to the vector measure

In particular, the Lebesgue measure on has this property.

  1. Yes. Any measure space with at least two atoms gives a counterexample. For instance, let with counting measure, and define , . Then the positive-measure subsets are , , and , so

This set is not convex, since it does not contain, for example, .