Natural boundaries for solutions to a certain class of functional differential equations (Q1604235)

Consider the initial value problem \[ y''(z)+ay'(z)+by(z)=cy(g(z)),\qquad y(z_o)=y_o,\quad y'(z_o)=y'_o,\tag{1} \] where \(a,b,c\in \mathbb{C}\) are constants with \(c\neq 0\), \(y_o^2+(y'_o)^2\neq 0.\) If \(g(z)=\alpha z\) (\(\alpha\) is a constant), then (1) is known as a pantograph equation. In the retarded case: \(|g(z)-z_o|<|z-z_o|\), an entire solution is generated by the pantograph equation. Here, the authors generalize the functional argument \(g(z)\) to include nonlinear polynomials (such as \(g(z)=z^2\)). They show the existence of a unique holomorphic solution to (1) on a connected domain \(A^o_{z_o}\) containing \(z_o\), if \(z_o\) is an attracting fixed-point of \(g\) (i.e., \(g(z_o)=z_o,|g(z)-z|<|z-z_o|\) for \(z\) belonging to some neighborhood \(U(z_o)\) of \(z_o\)). A further conclusion is that, in the nonlinear case of \(g\), natural boundaries occur. These boundaries are linked to the Julia set of the polynomial functional argument \(g(z)\).