Escaping points of entire functions of small growth (Q1006817)

For a transcendental entire function \(f\), let \(f^n\) denote the \(n\)-th iterate of \(f\). The Fatou set \(F(f)\) is the set of points \(z \in \mathbb{C}\) such that \((f^n)\) is a normal family in some neighbourhood of \(z\), while the complement of \(F(f)\) in \(\widehat{\mathbb C}\) is the Julia set \(J(f)\). Furthermore, the set of escaping points is defined by \[ I(f) := \{\, z \in \mathbb{C} : f^n(z) \to \infty \text{ as } n\to\infty \,\}\,. \] It is well-known that \(I(f) \neq \emptyset\), \(J(f) = \partial I(f)\), \(I(f) \cap J(f) \neq \emptyset\) and \(\overline{I(f)}\) has no bounded components. In particular, \(I(f)\) is unbounded. A conjecture of Eremenko states that even \(I(f)\) has no bounded components which is still open but known to be true for certain classes of functions. The authors give sufficient conditions for \(I(f)\) to be connected. In particular, they prove that this is true for functions of order zero with sufficiently small growth or of order less than \(1/2\) with regular growth. Therefore, Eremenko's conjecture is true for these functions. Furthermore, a new criterion related to \(I(f)\) is given which ensures that \(F(f)\) has no unbounded components.