Quasinormality and meromorphic functions with multiple zeros (Q2474563)

A family \(\mathcal F\) of functions meromorphic on a plane domain \(D\subset\mathbb C\) is said to be quasinormal on \(D\) if from each sequence \(\{f_n\}\subset\mathcal F\) one can extract a subsequence \(\{{f_n}_k\}\) which converges locally uniformly with respect to the spherical metric on \(D \backslash E\), where the set \(E\) (which may depend on \(\{{f_n}_k\}\)) has no accumulation point in \(D\). If \(E\) can always be chosen to satisfy \(| E| \leq\nu\), \(\mathcal F\) is said to be quasinormal of order \(\nu\) on \(D\). The family \(\mathcal F\) is said to be (quasi)normal at \(z_0\in D\) if it is (quasi)normal on some neighborhood of \(z_0\); thus \(\mathcal F\) is quasinormal on \(D\) iff it is quasinormal at each point \(z\in D\). The authors prove the following Theorem 1. Let \(\mathcal F\) be a family of meromorphic functions on the plane domain \(D\), all of whose zeros have multiplicity at least \(k + 1\). If there exists a holomorphic function \(\varphi\) univalent on \(D\) such that \(f^{(k)}(z)\neq \varphi'(z)\), \(\forall f\in \mathcal F\), \(z\in D\), then \(\mathcal F\) is quasinormal of order \text{1} on \(D\). The order of multiplicity assumed in Theorem 1 cannot be reduced, and a family of functions satisfying the hypotheses of Theorem 1 need not be normal. This is shown by corresponding examples. On the other hand, the following corollary takes place: Corollary. Let \(g(\not\equiv 0, \infty)\) be meromorphic on \(D\). If for each \(f\in\mathcal F\) and \(z\in D\), \(f^{(k)}(z)\neq g(z)\), then \(\mathcal F\) is quasinormal on \(D\). Theorem 1 is used to prove the following result in value distribution theory. Theorem 2. Let \(f\) be a transcendental meromorphic function on \(\mathbb C\) having at most finitely many simple zeros. Then \(f'\) takes on every nonzero complex value infinitely often.