Admissible solutions of second order differential equations (Q1204158)

It was proved by \textit{N. Steinmetz} [Ark. Mat. 4, 261-266 (1983; Zbl 0601.34005)] that if a transcendental meromorphic function \(w\) satisfies a differential equation of the form \(w''=Q(z,w)w'+P(z,w)\) where \(P\) and \(Q\) are polynomials in \(w\) and rational in \(z\) and if \(w\) does not satisfy a differential equation of Riccati type, then \(\deg_ w(Q)\leq 1\) and \(\deg_ w(P)\leq 3\), that is, \(w''=(q_ 1w+q_ 0)w'+p_ 3w^ 3+p_ 2w^ 2+p_ 1w+p_ 0\). In this paper, the latter differential equation is considered for meromorphic (necessarily rational) coefficients \(q_ 0,q_ 1,p_ 0,\dots,p_ 3\). A solution \(w\) is called admissible, if the Nevanlinna characteristics satisfy \(T(r,q_ i)=o(T(r,w))\) for \(i=0,1\) and \(T(r,p_ j)=o(T(r,w))\) for \(j=0,\dots,3\) as \(r\to\infty\) outside some exceptional set of finite measure. (Hence, if the coefficients are rational, a solution is admissible if and only if it is transcendental.) The main result of this paper is to characterize the cases in which the above differential equation has admissible solutions. These cases are too numerous to be stated here. Of course, the Painlevé equations are among them.