Ascoli-Arzelà theorem
Let be a bounded subset of and a sequence of functions . If is equibounded and uniformly equicontinuous then there exists a uniformly convergent subsequence .
A more abstract (and more general) version is the following.
Let and be totally bounded metric spaces and let be an uniformly equicontinuous family of continuous mappings from to .Then is totally bounded (with respect to the uniform convergence metric induced by ).
Notice that the first version is a consequence of the second.Recall, in fact, that a subset of a complete metric space is totally bounded if and only if its closure is compact
(or sequentially compact).Hence is totally bounded and all the functions have image in a totally bounded set. Being totally bounded means that is sequentially compact and hence has a convergent subsequence.