A power of a meromorphic function sharing a set with its derivative (Q337989)

The authors consider the uniqueness problem of a power of \(f\) and its derivative sharing a certain set, where \(f\) is a non-constant meromorphic function. Denote by \(E(a,f)\) the set of \(a\)-points of \(f\), for \(a\in \mathbb C\cup\{\infty\}\), and by \(\overline{E}(a,f)\) the set of distinct \(a\)-points. Let \(m\), \(n\) be positive integers and \(S=\{a_1, \dots,a_m\}\), \(a_i\neq a_j\), \(i\neq j\). Write \( E(S,f)=\bigcup_{a\in S}{E}(a,f)\) and \(\overline{E}(S,f)=\bigcup_{a\in S}\overline{E}(a,f)\). We say that two meromorphic functions \(f\) and \(g\) share the set \(S\) if \(E(S,f)=E(S,g)\). The authors define ``sharing WCM'' (counting multiplicities in the weak sense) as follows. Put \(Y=\overline{E}(S,f)\cup\overline{E}(S,g)\setminus \overline{E}(S;f,g)\), where \(\overline{E}(S;f,g)\) denotes the set of all distinct \(a_j\) points, \(j=1, \dots, m\), having the same multiplicities. If \(\sum_{j=1}^m\overline{N}_Y(r,a_j,f)=S(r,f)\) and \(\sum_{j=1}^m\overline{N}_Y(r,a_j,g)=S(r,g)\) then we say that \(f\) and \(g\) share \(S\) WCM. By means of Nevanlinna theory, the authors prove two theorems. One of them is the following. Suppose that \(m, n\geq 4\) and \(S\) does not contain \(0\). If \(f^n\) and \((f^n)'\) share the set \(S\) WCM, then \(f\) reduces to an exponential function. This result is an improvement of the result in [\textit{W. Lin} and \textit{B. Huang}, Acta Math. Sci., Ser. A, Chin. Ed. 24, No. 4, 449--453 (2004; Zbl 1096.30028)].