Construction of a Nonseparable Hilbert Space

Matt Rosenzweig
Lemma 1. Let H be a Hilbert space and {e } H be an orthonormal system. Then for each f H, the set
{ : (f, e ) 6= 0} is at most countable.


Proof. For each n Z1 , define En := : |(f, e )| n1 . Set E := { : (f, e ) 6= 0}. It is clear that
S
E = n=1 En .


Suppose there exists some n Z1 such that En is infinite. Let ek : k Z1 be a countable subset. By
Bessels inequality, we have that

|(f, ek )| kf k ,

k=1

which is a contradiction. Hence, En is finite for each n Z1 . Since the countable union of finite sets is at most
countable, we conclude that E is at most countable.
Lemma 2. If a Hilbert space (H, (, )) contains an uncountable orthonormal system, it cannot be separable.
Proof. Let {e } be an orthonormal system in H, indexed by an uncountable set , and suppose that H

is separable. Then H contains a complete orthonormal system {fn }n=1 . For each n Z1 , setS En :=

{ : (fn , e ) 6= 0}. By the preceding lemma, each En is at mot countable, and therefore E := n=1 En

is at most countable. Hence, there exists some 0 such that (fn , e0 ) = 0. But since {fn }n=1 is a complete
orthonormal system, we have that
e0 =

(e0 , fn )fn = 0,

n=1

which contradicts that ke0 k = 1.

Consider the R-vector space L of continuous functions f : R R such that
Z
(f ) :=

|f (x)| dx

lim

! 12

<

Consider the quotient vector space L/ ker() with inner product

1
R 2R

(f, g) := lim

f (x)g(x)dx,
R

which induces the norm kk := on the quotient space, and let H denote its completion, so that (H, (, )) is a
Hilbert space.
For each R, define e : R R by e (t) := eit . I claim that {e }R is an uncountable orthonormal
system in H.
Proof. To see uncountability, let 1 , 2 R be distinct and observe that
e1 = e2 ei(1 2 )t = 1 t R,

If 1 2 6= 0, then ei(1 2 ) 1 2 = 1. It is clear that ke k = 1 for all R. For orthogonality, observe that
for distinct 1 , 2 R and R > 0,

Z


 1 Z R



1  R i(1 2 )t 
1
1


 i(1 2 )R

e1 (t)e2 (t)dt =
e
dt =
ei(1 2 )R 
,


e
 2R R
 2R  R
 2R |1 2 |
R |1 2 |
which converges to 0 as R . We conclude from the preceding lemma that H is a nonseparable Hilbert
space.