On connected preimages of simply-connected domains under entire functions (Q2334615)

The paper starts with the following question: If \(f\) is a transcendental entire function, and \(G_{1}\) and \(G_{2}\) are disjoint simply connected domains, is it then true that at least one of \(f^{-1}(G_{1})\) and \(f^{-1}(G_{2})\) is disconnected? \textit{I. N. Baker} [in: Math. Essays dedicated to A.J. Macintyre 33--35 (1970; Zbl 0208.34004)] proved a result on completely invariant domains of transcendental entire functions. The proof of Baker could give a positive answer to the above question, but unfortunately in 2016 Julien Duval (private communication to the authors) discovered some flaw in Baker's proof. The main goal of the present paper is to give a negative answer to the above question. We mention only one typical result of the paper: Let \(f(z) = e^{z} + z\). Then there is an infinite sequence \(\{U_{j}\}_{j = 1}^{\infty} \) of pairwise disjoint simply connected domains such that \(f^{-1}(U_{j})\) is connected for all \(j\). At the end of the paper the authors mention a summary of a number of papers that are affected by the faulty proof of Baker.