On the totality of sequences in topological vector spaces

Price and Zink [Ann. of Math.82 (1965), 139–145] gave necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a multiplier m so that {mφ_n}₁^∞ is total; that is, the linear span is dense in L²[0, 1], thus answering a question raised by Boas and Pollard [Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.54 (1948), 512–522]. Using techniques similar to those of Price and Zink, it is shown that this result can be extended to more general spaces. Indeed, if X is either a separable Fréchet space or a complete separable p-normed space (0 < p ? 1), then the existence of a continuous linear operator A so that {Aφ_n}₁^∞ spans a dense subspace is implied by the existence of a nested, equicontinuous family of commuting projections which in addition has the properties that the union of their ranges is dense and that, for each projection, the projection of the original sequence is total in the projected space. Conversely, in a Banach space, it is shown that if such an operator exists and is 1-1 and scalar, then such a family of projections also exists. Further, it is shown that the above considerations extend the first half of the Price-Zink result to L^p[0, 1] (0 < p < ∞) and the other half to L^p[0, 1] (1 ? p < ∞).