On the norm attainment set of a bounded linear operator

In this paper we explore the properties of a bounded linear operator defined on a Banach space, in light of operator norm attainment. Using Birkhoff-James orthogonality techniques, we give a necessary condition for a bounded linear operator attaining norm at a particular point of the unit sphere. We prove a number of corollaries to establish the importance of our study. As part of our exploration, we also obtain a characterization of smooth Banach spaces in terms of operator norm attainment and Birkhoff-James orthogonality. Restricting our attention to $l_{p}^{2} (p \in \mathbb{N}\setminus \{ 1 \})$ spaces, we obtain an upper bound for the number of points at which any linear operator, which is not a scalar multiple of an isometry, may attain norm.