Unconditional convergence

Unconditional convergence is a topological property (convergence) related to an algebraical object (sum). It is an extension of the notion of convergence for series of countably many elements to series of arbitrarily many. It has been mostly studied in Banach spaces.

Definition

Let $X$ be a topological vector space. Let $I$ be an index set and $x_{i}\in X$ for all $i\in I$.

The series $\textstyle \sum _{{i\in I}}x_{i}$ is called unconditionally convergent to $x\in X$, if

• the indexing set $I_{0}:=\{i\in I:x_{i}\neq 0\}$ is countable and
• for every permutation of $I_{0}:=\{i\in I:x_{i}\neq 0\}$ the relation holds:$\sum _{{i=1}}^{\infty }x_{i}=x$

Alternative definition

Unconditional convergence is often defined in an equivalent way: A series is unconditionally convergent if for every sequence $(\varepsilon _{n})_{{n=1}}^{\infty }$, with $\varepsilon _{n}\in \{-1,+1\}$, the series

$\sum _{{n=1}}^{\infty }\varepsilon _{n}x_{n}$

converges.

Every absolutely convergent series is unconditionally convergent, but the converse implication does not hold in general: if X is an infinite dimensional Banach space, then by Dvoretzky–Rogers theorem there always exists an unconditionally convergent series in this space that is not absolutely convergent. However, when X = Rⁿ, then, by the Riemann series theorem, the series $\sum x_{n}$ is unconditionally convergent if and only if it is absolutely convergent.

See also

• Modes of convergence (annotated index)
• Riemann series theorem
• Dvoretzky–Rogers theorem

References

• Ch. Heil: A Basis Theory Primer
• Knopp, Konrad (1956). Infinite Sequences and Series. Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486601533.
• Knopp, Konrad (1990). Theory and Application of Infinite Series. Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486661650.
• Wojtaszczyk, P. (1996). Banach spaces for analysts. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521566759.

This article incorporates material from Unconditional convergence on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.