Characterizations of continuous operators on $$C_b(X)$$ with the strict topology

Let X be a completely regular Hausdorff space and $$C_b(X)$$ C b ( X ) be the space of all bounded continuous functions on X, equipped with the strict topology $$\beta $$ β . We study some important classes of $$(\beta ,\Vert \cdot \Vert _E)$$ ( β , ‖ · ‖ E ) -continuous linear operators from $$C_b(X)$$ C b ( X ) to a Banach space $$(E,\Vert \cdot \Vert _E)$$ ( E , ‖ · ‖ E ) : $$\beta $$ β -absolutely summing operators, compact operators and $$\beta $$ β -nuclear operators. We characterize compact operators and $$\beta $$ β -nuclear operators in terms of their representing measures. It is shown that dominated operators and $$\beta $$ β -absolutely summing operators $$T:C_b(X)\rightarrow E$$ T : C b ( X ) → E coincide and if, in particular, E has the Radon–Nikodym property, then $$\beta $$ β -absolutely summing operators and $$\beta $$ β -nuclear operators coincide. We generalize the classical theorems of Pietsch, Tong and Uhl concerning the relationships between absolutely summing, dominated, nuclear and compact operators on the Banach space C(X), where X is a compact Hausdorff space.