A Fréchet space is a Montel space if and only if every bounded continuous function sends closed bounded absolutely convex subsets of to relatively compact subsets of
Moreover, if denotes the vector space of all bounded continuous functions on a Fréchet space then is Montel if and only if every sequence in that converges to zero in the compact-open topology also converges uniformly to zero on all closed bounded absolutely convex subsets of [2]
Sufficient conditions
Semi-Montel spaces
A closed vector subspace of a semi-Montel space is again a semi-Montel space. The locally convex direct sum of any family of semi-Montel spaces is again a semi-Montel space. The inverse limit of an inverse system consisting of semi-Montel spaces is again a semi-Montel space. The Cartesian product of any family of semi-Montel spaces (resp. Montel spaces) is again a semi-Montel space (resp. a Montel space).
Montel spaces
The strong dual of a Montel space is Montel.
A barrelledquasi-completenuclear space is a Montel space.[1]
Every product and locally convex direct sum of a family of Montel spaces is a Montel space.[1]
The strict inductive limit of a sequence of Montel spaces is a Montel space.[1] In contrast, closed subspaces and separated quotients of Montel spaces are in general not even reflexive.[1]
Every FréchetSchwartz space is a Montel space.[3]
No infinite-dimensional Banach space is a Montel space. This is because a Banach space cannot satisfy the Heine–Borel property: the closed unit ball is closed and bounded, but not compact.
Fréchet Montel spaces are separable and have a bornological strong dual.
A metrizable Montel space is separable.[1]
Many Montel spaces of contemporary interest arise as spaces of test functions for a space of distributions.
The space of smooth functions on an open set in is a Montel space equipped with the topology induced by the family of seminorms[5]
for and ranges over compact subsets of and is a multi-index. Similarly, the space of compactly supported functions in an open set with the final topology of the family of inclusions as ranges over all compact subsets of The Schwartz space is also a Montel space.
Counter-examples
Every infinite-dimensional normed space is a barrelled space that is not a Montel space.[6]
In particular, every infinite-dimensional Banach space is not a Montel space.[6]
There exist Montel spaces that are not separable and there exist Montel spaces that are not complete.[6]
There exist Montel spaces having closed vector subspaces that are not Montel spaces.[7]
Edwards, Robert E. (1995). Functional Analysis: Theory and Applications. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN978-0-486-68143-6. OCLC30593138.
Hogbe-Nlend, Henri (1977). Bornologies and Functional Analysis: Introductory Course on the Theory of Duality Topology-Bornology and its use in Functional Analysis. North-Holland Mathematics Studies. Vol. 26. Amsterdam New York New York: North Holland. ISBN978-0-08-087137-0. MR0500064. OCLC316549583.
Hogbe-Nlend, Henri; Moscatelli, V. B. (1981). Nuclear and Conuclear Spaces: Introductory Course on Nuclear and Conuclear Spaces in the Light of the Duality "topology-bornology". North-Holland Mathematics Studies. Vol. 52. Amsterdam New York New York: North Holland. ISBN978-0-08-087163-9. OCLC316564345.
Köthe, Gottfried (1983) [1969]. Topological Vector Spaces I. Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften. Vol. 159. Translated by Garling, D.J.H. New York: Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN978-3-642-64988-2. MR0248498. OCLC840293704.