Birkhoff-functions that are bounded on prescribed sets (Q2490654)

Let \(\mathcal M\) denote the family of all compact sets \(K\subset \mathbb C\) with connected complement and let \(\mathcal A(K)\) denote the family of all functions which are continuous on \(K\) and are holomorphic in the interior of \(K\). In 1929, Birkhoff established the existence of an entire function with universal translates. His result may be formulated as follows. There exists a universal entire function \(\varphi\) with the property that for every \(K\in \mathcal M\) and every \(f\in \mathcal A(K)\), there exists a sequence \(\{z_n\}\subset \mathbb C\) with \(z_n\to \infty\) and \(\varphi(z+z_n)\to f(z)\) uniformly on \(K\). The purpose of the paper under review, is to construct similar universal functions which, in addition, are bounded on certain prescribed closed sets. The proofs of the results are based on some classical approximation theorems of Mergelian and Arakelian. In the last section of the paper, the authors prove that a certain family of universal entire functions is dense (but not a \(G_{\delta}\)) in the space of all entire functions endowed with a natural metric.