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I believe that the following fact is true and I am looking for a reference.

Let $X$ be a locally compact Hausdorff topological space (may be assumed to be metrizable). Let $V$, $W$ be Fréchet spaces. Then any separately continuous map $X\times V\to W$ which is linear with respect to the second variable, is (jointly) continuous.

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2 Answers 2

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This is easy and comes from the fact that $V$, being a Fréchet space, is barrelled, that is, the locally convex topology of $V$ coincides with its strong topology $\beta(V,V')$ (where $V'$ = topological dual ov $V$), which is the one induced by the barrels = closed, absolutely convex and absorbing subsets of $V$, since by the bipolar theorem these are precisely the polars of pointwise bounded subsets in $V'$. In other words, in a barrelled Hausdorff locally convex vector space (henceforth lcs for short) every barrel is a neighborhood of zero. Equivalently, by e.g. Proposition 11.1.1, pp. 219 of the book by H. Jarchow, Locally Convex Spaces (B. G. Teubner, 1981), a Hausdorff lcs $V$ is barrelled if and only if for every Hausdorff lcs $W$ any pointwise bounded subset of $\mathscr{L}(V,W)$ ( = space of continuous linear maps from $V$ into $W$) is equicontinuous. This is the key result we will use.

Let now $T:X\times V\rightarrow W$ satisfy your hypotheses. For any compact subset $K\subset X$, we have that $T(K,v)\subset W$ is compact, hence bounded, for all $v\in V$. In other words, $T(K,\cdot)\subset\mathscr{L}(V,W)$ is pointwise bounded, hence equicontinuous. Finally, let $(p,v)\in X\times V$ and $U\subset W$ open with $T(p,v)\in U$. Since $T(\cdot,v)$ is continuous, there is a compact neighborhood $K\subset X$ of $p$ (since $X$ is locally compact) such that $T(K,v)\subset U$. Since $T(K,\cdot)$ is equicontinuous, there is $U'\subset V$ open with $v\in U'$ such that $T(K,U')\subset U$. We are done. Notice that it is not necessary to assume that $X$ is metrizable, and $W$ can be any Hausdorff lcs.

We remark that a similar argument, with the help of the Banach-Steinhaus theorem, can be used to prove joint continuity of separately continuous bilinear maps from metrizable lcs $E,F$ into a Hausdorff lcs $G$ if $E$ or $F$ is barrelled.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much. It would be great to have a reference to this argument. $\endgroup$
    – asv
    Commented Feb 19, 2023 at 7:29
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    $\begingroup$ I've never seen this statement elsewhere, tbh... However, if you assume Proposition 11.1.1 from Jarchow's book and the fact that Fréchet spaces, being completely metrizable top. spaces, satisfy the Baire category theorem and thus are barrelled (see e.g. Proposition 11.1.5, pp. 220 of Jarchow's book), the proof boils down to just straightforwardly applying definitions and the standard facts that (1) continuous maps send compact sets to compact sets and (2) compact subsets of a lcs are bounded. Fwiw, the above propositions most likely go back to Bourbaki's tomes on topological vector spaces. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 16:43
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Theorem 2.6.6 in “USCO and Quasicontinuous mappings”, vol. 81, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021, by L.Hola, D.Holy and W.Moors says (more-or-less):

If $f:H\times X \to G$ is a separately continuous mapping, $H$ is a Cech-complete topological group, $X$ is a $q$-space, $G$ is a topological group, and for each $x \in X$, $h \mapsto f(h, x)$ is a group homomorphism, then $f$ is jointly continuous on $H\times X$.

But perhaps this is too general for your purposes.

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