When is a Locally Convex Space Eberlein–Grothendieck?

The weak topology of a locally convex space (lcs) E is denoted by w. In this paper we undertake a systematic study of those lcs E such that (E, w) is (linearly) Eberlein–Grothendieck (see Definitions 1.2 and 3.1). The following results obtained in our paper play a key role: for every barrelled lcs E, the space (E, w) is Eberlein–Grothendieck (linearly Eberlein–Grothendieck) if and only if E is metrizable (E is normable, respectively). The main applications concern to the space of continuous real-valued functions on a Tychonoff space X endowed with the compact-open topology C_k(X). We prove that (C_k(X) , w) is Eberlein–Grothendieck (linearly Eberlein-Grothen—dieck) if and only if X is hemicompact (X is compact, respectively). Besides this, we show that the class of E for which (E, w) is linearly Eberlein–Grothendieck preserves linear continuous quotients. Various illustrating examples are provided.