Differential inequalities and quasi-normal families (Q461363)

The well-known Marty criterion states that a family \(\mathcal{F}\) of meromorphic functions in a domain \(D \subset \mathbb{C}\) is normal (in the sense of Montel) if and only if the family \(\mathcal{F}^\# := \{\, f^\# : f \in \mathcal{F} \,\}\) of the corresponding spherical derivatives \(f^\# := \frac{|f'|}{1+|f|^2}\) is locally uniformly bounded in \(D\). In [J. Anal. Math. 117, 119--128 (2012; Zbl 1291.30232)] \textit{J. Grahl} and \textit{S. Nevo} have shown that \(\mathcal{F}\) is normal in \(D\) if \(\mathcal{F}^\#\) is uniformly bounded away from zero in \(D\). This sufficient condition for normality can be interpreted as a differential inequality. In recent years several authors studied further conditions of this type which imply normality or at least quasi-normality. A family \(\mathcal{F}\) of meromorphic functions in \(D\) is called quasi-normal if every sequence \((f_n)\) in \(\mathcal{F}\) has a subsequence which is locally uniformly convergent in \(D \setminus E\), where \(E\) is a subset of \(D\) without accumulation point in \(D\) (which may depend on \((f_n)\)). If \(E\) can always be chosen to have at least \(q\) elements, then \(\mathcal{F}\) is called quasi-normal of order at most \(q\). \textit{Q. Chen} et al. [Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Math. 38, No. 2, 691--695 (2013; Zbl 1294.30004)] proved that if \(\alpha>0\), \(C>0\) and \(k\) is a positive integer such that \[ \frac{|f^{(k)}(z)|}{1+|f(z)|^\alpha} \geq C \] for all \(z \in D\) and all \(f \in \mathcal{F}\), then \(\mathcal{F}\) is normal in \(D\). This result does not hold any longer when \(\alpha>1\) is replaced by \(\alpha=1\). But then \(\mathcal{F}\) is quasi-normal at least for \(k=1\), which was proved by \textit{X. J. Liu} et al. [Acta Math. Sin., Engl. Ser. 30, No. 2, 277--282 (2014; Zbl 1291.30207)]. In the present paper the authors prove the following result. Let \(k\) and \(j\) be integers with \(k>j \geq 0\) and \(C>0\), \(\alpha>1\) be real numbers. If \(\mathcal{F}\) is a family of meromorphic functions in a domain \(D\) such that \[ \frac{|f^{(k)}(z)|}{1+|f^{(j)}(z)|^\alpha} \geq C \] for all \(z \in D\) and all \(f \in \mathcal{F}\), then \(\mathcal{F}\) is quasi-normal in \(D\). If all functions in \(\mathcal{F}\) are holomorphic, then \(\mathcal{F}\) is quasi-normal of order at most \(j-1\) in \(D\). For \(j=0\) and \(j=1\) this means that \(\mathcal{F}\) is normal. The main tools of the proof are the Zalcman rescaling method and previous results on differential inequalities which imply normality.