In mathematics, Auerbach's lemma, named after Herman Auerbach, is a theorem in functional analysis which asserts that a certain property of Euclidean spaces holds for general finite-dimensional normed vector spaces.
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Statement
Let (V, ||·||) be an n-dimensional normed vector space. Then there exists a basis {e1, ..., en} of V such that
||ei|| = 1 and ||ei|| = 1 for i = 1, ..., nwhere {e1, ..., en} is a basis of V* dual to {e1, ..., en}, i. e. ei(ej) = δij.
A basis with this property is called an Auerbach basis.
If V is a Euclidean space (or even infinite-dimensional Hilbert space) then this result is obvious as one may take for {ei} any orthonormal basis of V (the dual basis is then {(ei|·)}).
Geometric formulation
An equivalent statement is the following: any centrally symmetric convex body in
Corollary
The lemma has a corollary with implications to approximation theory.
Let V be an n-dimensional subspace of a normed vector space (X, ||·||). Then there exists a projection P of X onto V such that ||P|| ≤ n.
Proof
Let {e1, ..., en} be an Auerbach basis of V and {e1, ..., en} corresponding dual basis. By Hahn–Banach theorem each ei extends to f i ∈ X* such that
||f i|| = 1.Now set
P(x) = ∑ f i(x) ei.It's easy to check that P is indeed a projection onto V and that ||P|| ≤ n (this follows from triangle inequality).