Conventionally, if the index is
, then it means the index set is countable. Otherwise, if the index is
, then it means the index set is not necessarily countable.
Let
be Banach space. A biorthogonal system
in
is a Markushevich basis if
is complete (also called "fundamental"):
and
is total: it separates the points of
. Totality is equivalently stated as
where the closure is taken under the weak-star topology.
A Markushevich basis is shrinking iff we further have
under the topology induced by the operator norm on
.
A Markushevich basis is bounded iff
.
A Markushevich basis
is strong iff
for all
.
Since
, we always have the lower bound
, and therefore
.
If
, then we can simply scale both so that
for all
. This special case of the Markushevich basis is called an Auerbach basis. Auerbach's lemma states that any finite-dimensional Banach space has an Auerbach basis.