Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
A well known result due to Dixmier and Grothendieck for spaces of continuous scalar-valued functions C(X), X compact Hausdorff, is that C(X) is a Banach dual if, and only if, Xis hyperstonean. Moreover, for hyperstonean X, the predual of C(X) is strongly unique. Here we obtain a formulation of this result for spaces of continuous vector-valued functions. It is shown that if E is a Hilbert space and C(X, (E, σ *) ) denotes the space of continuous functions on X to E when E is provided with its weak * ( = weak) topology, then C(X, (E, σ *) ) is a Banach dual if, and only if, X is hyperstonean. Moreover, for hyperstonean X, the predual of C(X, (E, σ *) ) is strongly unique.