A new approach to analytic multifunctions (Q1819206)

This paper is devoted to a new and quite natural definition of analytic multifunctions. It is divided into six sections. The first one gives the definition of gauges which are collections of upper semi-continuous functions satisfying stability properties and describes the gauge generated by any collection of upper semi-continuous functions. Generalizing this concept to multifunctions the second section defines the multigauges and the multigauge generated by a collection of upper semi-continuous multifunctions. Two fundamental lemmas are proved showing how some properties of a set of multifunctions are inherited by the generated multigauge. The definition of analytic multifunctions is now given in the third seetion. They are the elements of the multigauge generated by the (single-valued) rational functions. The fundamental theorems concerning these analytic multifunctions are proved in the next section including a generalization of the maximum principle and of the Picard theorem. Then the author shows the equivalence of his definition and the usual ones (using plurisubharmonic functions or pseudoconvexity). The two last sections investigate other properties of analytic multifunctions, in particular the intermediate-value property and the localization principle, the Schwarz lemma and the Schwarz-Pick theorem. As an example of generated gauge it is proved in the first section that the subharmonic functions on an open set of \(\mathbb{C}\) are exactly the elements of the gauge generated by the real part of polynomials of degree 2. This explains the importance of subharmonic functions in this theory.