AbstractWe generalize the notion of summable Szlenk index from a Banach space to an arbitrary weak*-compact set. We prove that a weak*-compact set has summable Szlenk index if and only if its weak*-closed, absolutely convex hull does. As a consequence, we offer a new, short proof of a result from Draga and Kochanek [J. Funct. Anal. 271 (2016), 642–671] regarding the behavior of summability of the Szlenk index under c0 direct sums. We also use this result to prove that the injective tensor product of two Banach spaces has summable Szlenk index if both spaces do, which answers a question from Draga and Kochanek [Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 145 (2017), 1685–1698]. As a final consequence of this result, we prove that a separable Banach space has summable Szlenk index if and only if it embeds into a Banach space with an asymptotic c0 finite dimensional decomposition, which generalizes a result from Odell et al. [Q. J. Math. 59, (2008), 85–122]. We also introduce an ideal norm $\mathfrak{s}$ on the class $\mathfrak{S}$ of operators with summable Szlenk index and prove that $(\mathfrak{S}, \mathfrak{s})$ is a Banach ideal. For 1 ⩽ p ⩽ ∞, we prove precise results regarding the summability of the Szlenk index of an ℓp direct sum of a collection of operators.
Direct sums and summability of the Szlenk index