Compact reduction in Lipschitz-free spaces

We prove a general principle satisfied by weakly precompact sets of Lipschitz-free spaces. By this principle, certain infinite dimensional phenomena in Lipschitz-free spaces over general metric spaces may be reduced to the same phenomena in free spaces over their compact subsets. As easy consequences we derive several new and some known results. The main new results are: $\mathcal {F}(X)$ is weakly sequentially complete for every superreflexive Banach space $X$, and $\mathcal {F}(M)$ has the Schur property and the approximation property for every scattered complete metric space $M$.

A ξ-weak Grothendieck compactness principle

For 0 ≤ ξ ≤ ω1, we define the notion of ξ-weakly precompact and ξ-weakly compact sets in Banach spaces and prove that a set is ξ-weakly precompact if and only if its weak closure is ξ-weakly compact. We prove a quantified version of Grothendieck’s compactness principle and the characterisation of Schur spaces obtained in [7] and [9]. For 0 ≤ ξ ≤ ω1, we prove that a Banach space X has the ξ-Schur property if and only if every ξ-weakly compact set is contained in the closed, convex hull of a weakly null (equivalently, norm null) sequence. The ξ = 0 and ξ= ω1 cases of this theorem are the theorems of Grothendieck and [7], [9], respectively.