Topology, isomorphic smoothness and polyhedrality in Banach spaces

Abstract In recent decades, topology has come to play an increasing role in some geometric aspects of Banach space theory. The class of so-called w ⁎ -locally relatively compact sets was introduced recently by Fonf, Pallares, Troyanski and the author, and were found to be a useful topological tool in the theory of isomorphic smoothness and polyhedrality in Banach spaces. We develop the topological theory of these sets and present some Banach space applications.