Transcendental singularities for a meromorphic function with logarithmic derivative of finite lower order (Q2422095)

Let \(f\) be a transcendental meromorphic function in the complex plane such that \(f^{-1}\) has \(n\geq 1\) distinct direct transcendental singularities over finite non-zero values. Let \(k\in\mathbb{N}\), let \(A_k=f^{(k)}/f\) and define the lower order of \(A_k\) as \[ \mu = \liminf_{r\to\infty} \frac{\log T(r,A_k)}{\log r}. \] In the paper under review it is shown that there exists a set \(F_0 \subset [1,\infty)\) of finite logarithmic measure such that \[ \lim_{r\to\infty,\, r\not\in F_0} \frac{\log (\min\{|A_k(z)|:|z|=r\})}{\log r} = - \infty. \] It is also shown that if \(n\geq 2\), then \(n\leq 2\mu\), and if \(n=1\) and there exists \(\kappa >0\) and a path \(\gamma\) tending to infinity in the complement of the neighborhood \(C(\kappa)\) of the singularity, then \(\mu \geq 1/2\). If \(f\) is a transcendental meromorphic function in the complex plane such that \(A_k\) has finite lower order for some \(k\in\mathbb{N}\) and such that \(f^{-1}\) has an indirect transcendental singularity over \(\alpha\in\mathbb{C}\cup\{\infty\}\), then it is shown that each neighborhood of the singularity contains infinitely many zeros of \(f'f^{(k)}\), which are not \(\alpha\)-points of \(f\). The paper is concluded by a related result on Schwarzian derivatives.