On a paper of Phelps

Abstract

In [4], Phelps showed that in certain function algebras the unit ball is the closed convex hull of its extreme points. The algebra, C(X), of complex valued continuous functions on a compact Hausdorff space, will always have this property. The class of logmodular algebras which have a Gleason part which is total also was shown to have the property. In this paper we give an elementary proof of the first result (a proof which is, in theory at least, constructive). The simplest nontrivial example of a logmodular algebra with a total part is the disk algebra (i.e. the functions continuous on the closed disk and analytic in the interior). For this algebra we show that the extreme points (in fact the exposed points) of the unit ball form a dense subset of the boundary of the unit ball. Let U be the unit ball of C(X). It is well known that q in U is an extreme point of U if I q(x) I = 1 for all x in X. Now if f in U never vanishes, then f is in the closed convex hull of the extreme points; in factf is between two uniquely determined extreme points. We need only observe that for each x in X,f(x) is halfway between two uniquely determined extreme points of the disk and that these points vary continuously with x. Now it is not necessarily the case that each function in U can be approximated by a nonvanishing function. For a counterexample we need only look at h(z) = z in the algebra of continuous functions on the disk. (If If(z)-zj 1/e. Letfi, i = 1, *, N be the retract maps obtained from these rotations. Then I 1/N Efi(z)-z <2e for IZi <e. If e?<z I<1, then ft(z)=z for all but at most one value of i. We then obtain 2/N?2E as the estimate for e I z|I< 1.