ba space

Let B(Σ) be the space of bounded Σ-measurable functions, equipped with the uniform norm. Then ba(Σ) = B(Σ)* is the continuous dual space of B(Σ). This is due to Hildebrandt (1934) and Fichtenholtz & Kantorovich (1934) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFFichtenholtzKantorovich1934 (help). This is a kind of Riesz representation theorem which allows for a measure to be represented as a linear functional on measurable functions. In particular, this isomorphism allows one to define the integral with respect to a finitely additive measure (note that the usual Lebesgue integral requires countable additivity). This is due to Dunford & Schwartz (1958), and is often used to define the integral with respect to vector measures (Diestel & Uhl 1977, Chapter I), and especially vector-valued Radon measures.

The topological duality ba(Σ) = B(Σ)* is easy to see. There is an obvious algebraic duality between the vector space of all finitely additive measures σ on Σ and the vector space of simple functions (${\displaystyle \mu (A)=\zeta \left(1_{A}\right)}$). It is easy to check that the linear form induced by σ is continuous in the sup-norm iff σ is bounded, and the result follows since a linear form on the dense subspace of simple functions extends to an element of B(Σ)* iff it is continuous in the sup-norm.

If Σ is a sigma-algebra and μ is a sigma-additive positive measure on Σ then the Lp space L^∞(μ) endowed with the essential supremum norm is by definition the quotient space of B(Σ) by the closed subspace of bounded μ-null functions:

${\displaystyle N_{\mu }:=\{f\in B(\Sigma ):f=0\ \mu {\text{-almost everywhere}}\}.}$

The dual Banach space L^∞(μ)* is thus isomorphic to

${\displaystyle N_{\mu }^{\perp }=\{\sigma \in ba(\Sigma ):\mu (A)=0\Rightarrow \sigma (A)=0{\text{ for any }}A\in \Sigma \},}$

i.e. the space of finitely additive signed measures on Σ that are absolutely continuous with respect to μ (μ-a.c. for short).

When the measure space is furthermore sigma-finite then L^∞(μ) is in turn dual to L¹(μ), which by the Radon–Nikodym theorem is identified with the set of all countably additive μ-a.c. measures. In other words, the inclusion in the bidual

${\displaystyle L^{1}(\mu )\subset L^{1}(\mu )^{**}=L^{\infty }(\mu )^{*}}$

is isomorphic to the inclusion of the space of countably additive μ-a.c. bounded measures inside the space of all finitely additive μ-a.c. bounded measures.