Amenability of Banach algebras

Abstract

We consider the problem of amenability for a commutative Banach algebra. The question of amenability for a Banach algebra was first studied by B. E. Johnson in 1972, in [5]. The most recent contributions, to our knowledge, are papers by Bade, Curtis and Dales [1], and by Curtis and Loy [3]. In the first, amenability for Lipschitz algebras on a compact metric space K is studied. Using the fact, which they prove, that LipαK is isometrically isomorphic to the second dual of lipαK, for 0 < α < 1, they show that lipαK is not amenable when K is infinite and 0 < α < 1. In the second paper, the authors prove, without using any serious cohomology theory, some results proved earlier by Khelemskii and Scheinberg [8] using cohomology. They also discuss the amenability of Lipschitz algebras, using the result that a weakly complemented closed two-sided ideal in an amenable Banach algebra has a bounded approximate identity. Their result is stronger than that of [1].