Zeros of the successive derivatives of Hadamard gap series in the unit disk (Q584441)

The final set of an analytic function is the set of all complex numbers z such that every neighborhood of z contains zeros of infinitely many derivatives of f. Let \(\lambda >1\) and \(H(\lambda)\) be \((\lambda - 1)\lambda^{\lambda /(1-\lambda)}\) when \(1<\lambda <\infty\) and one when \(\lambda =\infty\). If f is defined by a power series \[ f(z)=\sum^{\infty}_{k=1}c_ kz^{n_ k} \] for which \[ \lim_{k\to \infty}| c_ k|^{1/n_ k}\equiv 1 \] and \(\lambda =\liminf_{k\to \infty}(n_{k+1}/n_ k)\), then the final set of f is \(\{0\}\cup \{H(\lambda)\leq | z| \leq 1\}\) when \(1<\lambda <\infty\) and is contained in \(\{0\}\cup \{| z| =1\}\) when \(\lambda =\infty\). When \(\lambda =\infty\), if for some \(B\geq 0\) \(\limsup_{k\to \infty}n_ k^ B| c_ k| >0\), then the final set is \(\{0\}\cup \{| z| =1\}\). Examples show that when \(\lambda =\infty\), the final set could consist of \(\{0\}\) only. The proof is elementary in character with the main tools being the idea of Hardy and Littlewood that successive differentiations accentuate the dominance of the largest term of the series (c.f. \textit{W. H. J. Fuchs} [Nagoya Math. J. 29, 167-174 (1967; Zbl 0172.369)] and Rouché's theorem.