Compact sets in Banach lattices over spaces of homogeneous type

Abstract

We prove a Kolmogorov--Riesz compactness theorem for Banach lattices over spaces of homogeneous type. Especially, we consider the one for $L^1$. Our characterization is formulated in terms of boundedness, tightness, and approximation by averaging operators, which replace translations in the absence of a group structure. The result requires neither the Vitali covering property nor continuity assumptions on the measure of balls, lower volume bounds, or finiteness of the underlying measure space, thereby extending several recent compactness criteria in the literature. Our approach begins with a new proof of the Kolmogorov--Riesz theorem in $L^1$, which avoids reflexivity and yields a unified treatment of $L^p$-spaces for $1\le p<\infty$. We then establish an approximation theorem based on Christ's dyadic cubes and use it to characterize the closure of compactly supported continuous functions in general ball Banach function spaces. Applications include compactness criteria for rearrangement-invariant Banach function spaces and Morrey spaces. In the Euclidean setting, we also identify the resulting approximation space with the classical heat-semigroup (equivalently, mollifier) closure.