Abstract. We obtain sufficient conditions on an M-embedded or L-embedded space so that every nonempty relatively weakly open subset of its unit ball has norm diameter 2. We prove that, up to renorming, this holds for every Banach space containing c 0 and, as a consequence, for every proper M-ideal. The result obtained for L-embedded spaces can be applied to show that the above property is satisfied for every predual of an atomless real JBW*-triple. As a consequence, a characterization of the Radon-Nikodym property is obtained in this setting, showing that a predual of a real JBW*-triple E verifies the Radon-Nikodym property if, and only if, E is the l ∞ -sum of real type I triple factors.
IntroductionThe nonexistence of denting points in the unit ball of some function spaces has been the subject of several recent papers [13], [23]. A point x 0 in the sphere of a Banach space X, S X , is a denting point of the unit ball in X, B X , if there are slices, that is, subsets defined ascontaining x 0 , with diameter arbitrarily small. From [6], x 0 is a denting point of the unit ball of X if, and only if, x 0 is an extreme point in B X and x 0 is a point of weak-norm continuity, that is, a point of continuity for the identity map from (B X , w) onto (B X , n), where w and n denote the weak and the norm topology, respectively. In particular, the existence of denting points in the unit ball of a Banach space X implies the existence of nonempty relatively weakly open subsets of the unit ball in X with diameter arbitrarily small. Then the extreme opposite property to the existence of denting points in the unit ball of a Banach space is that every nonempty relatively weakly open subset of the unit ball has diameter 2. This is the case, for example, for infinite-dimensional C * -algebras [5], uniform algebras [20], non-hilbertizable real JB*-triples [4] and for some Banach spaces of vector valued functions and some spaces of operators [3].The aim of this note is to study when every nonempty relatively weakly open subset of the unit ball of an M-embedded or L-embedded space has diameter 2. In Theorem 2.4, we obtain sufficient conditions in order to assure the above property in the M-ideals case, when only the original norms are considered, by improving the results in [23]. After this, it is shown in Proposition 2.6 that every Banach space containing c 0 can be equivalently renormed so that every nonempty relatively weakly open subset of its unit ball has diameter 2, and then the same is true for proper M-ideals.The result for the L-embedded case is Theorem 2.8, where a sufficient condition to have diameter 2 for all nonempty relatively weakly open subsets of the unit ball of an L-embedded space is obtained. This condition works in the setting of preduals of real JBW*-triples and, as a consequence, we prove in Theorem 2.12 that every nonempty relatively weakly open subset of the unit ball of the predual of an atomless real JBW*-triple has diameter 2. Then the same holds for preduals of atomless Von Neumann algebras. Finally an...