On the normality criteria of Montel and Bergweiler-Langley (Q2374231)

The paper deals with some normality criteria for families of meromorphic functions. First, the following generalization of the \textit{P. Montel} [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (3) 33, 223--302 (1916; JFM 46.0519.01)] and \textit{J. Grahl} and \textit{S. Nevo} [Isr. J. Math. 202, 21--34 (2014; Zbl 1300.30068)] results to the case of spherical derivatives is proved: Theorem 1. Let \({\mathcal F}\) be a family of meromorphic functions in a domain \(D \subset {\mathbb C}\), and denote by \(\sigma\) the spherical metric on \(\mathbb C\). Assume that for each compact subset \(K \subset D\), there are i) positive integers (or \(+\infty\)) \(l_1, \ldots, l_q\) satisfying \[ \sum\limits_{j=1}^{q} \frac{1}{l_j} < q - 2, \] ii) meromorphic functions \(a_{1f}, \ldots, a_{qf}\) in \(D\), with \(f \in {\mathcal F}\), and positive constants \(\epsilon\) and \(M\) such that \(\sigma(a_{if}(z), a_{jf}(z)) \geq \epsilon\) for all \(z \in D\), \(1 \leq i, j \leq q\), \(i \not= j\), and \[ \sup\limits_{z\in K: f(z)=a_{jf}(z) \not=+\infty} \left(f^{(k)}\right)^{\sharp}(z) \leq M,\quad \sup\limits_{z\in K: f(z)=a_{jf}(z) =+\infty} \left(\left(\frac{1}{f}\right)^{(k)}\right)^{\sharp}(z) \leq M, \] for all \(f\in {\mathcal F}\), \(j=1,\ldots,l_j-2\). Then \({\mathcal F}\) is a normal family. Definition. Let \(k\) be a positive integer, \(0 < M \leq +\infty\), \(0 < N \leq +\infty\), and let \(D\) be a plain domain. 1. Let \({\mathcal F}(k, M, N, D)\) be the set of all meromorphic functions \(f\) on \(D\) such that all zeros of \(f\) have multiplicity at least \(M\), while all zeros of \(f^{(k)} - 1\) have multiplicity at least \(N\). 2. Let \(c\) be a positive constant. Let \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}(k, M, N, c, D)\) be the set of all meromorphic functions \(f\) on \(D\) such that \[ \sup \big\{(f^{(i)})^{\sharp}(z) : z\in f^{-1}(0)\big\} \leq c, \] for all \(i = 1, \ldots, M - 2\), and \[ \sup \{(f^{(k+l)})^{\sharp}(z) : z\in (f^{(k)})^{-1}(1)\} \leq c, \] for all \(l = 1, \ldots, N - 2\). The authors prove the following theorem which is a generalization of a theorem by \textit{W. Bergweiler} and \textit{J. K. Langley} [J. Aust. Math. Soc. 78, No. 1, 37--57 (2005; Zbl 1074.30028)]. Theorem. If \({\mathcal F}(k, M, N, {\mathbb C})\) consists of constants only, then \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}(k, M, N, c, D)\) is a normal family.