On the facial structure of the unit ball in the dual space of a JB*-triple

It is shown that every proper weak* closed face of the closed unit ball E₁^*{E_1^*} in the dual space of a JB*-triple E coincides with set of all elements in the unit sphere of E* attaining their norm at a unique compact tripotent in E**. In particular every proper weak* closed face of the closed unit ball E₁^*{E_1^*} is weak*-semi-exposed. This result provides an affirmative answer to a conjecture posed over 20 years ago.