Preduals and complementation of spaces of bounded linear operators

Abstract

For Banach spaces [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], we establish a natural bijection between preduals of [Formula: see text] and preduals of [Formula: see text] that respect the right [Formula: see text]-module structure. If [Formula: see text] is reflexive, it follows that there is a unique predual making [Formula: see text] into a dual Banach algebra. This removes the condition that [Formula: see text] have the approximation property in a result of Daws. We further establish a natural bijection between projections that complement [Formula: see text] in its bidual and [Formula: see text]-linear projections that complement [Formula: see text] in its bidual. It follows that [Formula: see text] is complemented in its bidual if and only if [Formula: see text] is (either as a module or as a Banach space). Our results are new even in the well-studied case of isometric preduals.