Absolutely continuous conjugacies of Blaschke products (Q1923994)

This paper considers nontrivial, that is non one-to-one and non-constant Blaschke products \(f(z)=e^{it}z^k\prod^m_{j=1}({z-a_j\over 1-\overline a_jz})\), \(|a_j|<1\), on the unit circle \(S\). If \(f\) can not be conjugated to another Blaschke product by a bijection which is absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure other than by a bilinear transformation or the complex conjugate of one, then we say \(f\) is strongly rigid. In the hyperbolic case where the nontrivial Blaschke product \(f:S\to S\) has a fixed point \(w\), \(|w|<1\), Schub and Sullivan proved that \(f\) must be strongly rigid. In this paper, the author shows that if the attractive point of \(f\) is on the boundary of \(S\), then \(f\) need not be strongly rigid. First, for finite nontrivial Blaschke products \(f:S\to S\) he proves \(f\) is strongly rigid if and only if the Julia set of \(f\) is \(S\). A related result is established for inner functions on the disk. A function \(f\) is inner if it is analytic and bounded on the unit disk \(D\) and the radial limit of \(|f(re^{i\theta})|\) is 1 as \(r\to 1\) for a.e. \(\theta\). An inner function \(f\) is called rigid if \(f\) can not be conjugated to another inner function by a homeomorphism which is absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure. Hamilton proves that an inner function \(f:S\to S\) is rigid if and only if it is ergodic. The proofs rely heavily on the dynamical theory for inner functions due to Aaronson, Doering and Mane, and Pommerenke; the theory of quasiconformal mappings and ergodic theory.