Angular derivatives on bounded symmetric domains (Q1425652)

This paper on complex and functional analysis gives a generalization of the classical theorem of Julia, Carathéodory and Wolff about the angular limits and angular derivatives at a boundary point, of holomorphic self-maps of the unit disc. The line of this generalization leads to replacing the disc by bounded symmetric domains, which in turn involves the study of the unit ball of Jordan Banach triples. One has to find analogs in this algebraic setting of the classical notions of Stolz angles, horocycles, etc., and of the classical tools such as the Lindelöf principle. These kinds of analogs have only recently been developed, starting perhaps with the work of \textit{P. Mellon} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 523, 199--223 (2000; Zbl 0956.32023)]. From the many results of the paper under review, for the sake of brevity, here we only mention one of the corollaries of the theory that is least technical to state. Corollary~4.10. Let \(B,\Delta\) be the unit balls of a \(C^*\)-algebra with unit \(1\) and of \({\mathbb C}\), respectively, and \(f:B\to\Delta\) be holomorphic. If \(f(0)=0\), \(\alpha=\liminf_{z\to1}\frac{1-| f(z)| ^2}{1-\| z\| ^2}<\infty\), and \(\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{1-| f(z_k)| ^2}{1-\| z_k\| ^2}=\alpha\), and \(f(z_k)\to1\) along a sequence of scalar multiples \(z_k\) of partial isometries, tending to 1, then the angular limit of \(f(z)\) is \(1\), and the restricted angular limit of \(f'(z)\) is \(\alpha\) as \(z\to1\). The proofs in this paper are largely algebraic with refreshing doses of analysis. The article is well-written and very interesting.