On the locally univalent Bloch constant (Q5917707)

The author establishes a modest improvement in the lower bound on the locally univalent Bloch constant. A holomorphic function \(f\) defined on the unit disk \({\mathbf D}\) is a Bloch function if it is normalized by \(f(0)= 0\), \(f'(0)= 1\) and \((1- |z|^2)|f'(z)|\leq 1\) for \(z\in {\mathbf D}\). If, in addition, \(f'(z)\neq 0\) for \(z\in {\mathbf D}\), then \(f\) is called a locally univalent Bloch function. For \(a\in {\mathbf D}\) let \(r(a, f)\) be the radius of the largest schlicht disk with center \(f(a)\) in the image Riemann surface of \(f\). Set \(r(f)= \sup\{r(a, f): a\in {\mathbf D}\}\). The locally univalent Bloch constant in \(B_\infty= \inf r(f)\), where the infimum is taken over all normalized locally univalent Bloch functions. It is conjectured that \(B_\infty= {\Gamma(1/3) \Gamma(5/6)\over \Gamma(1/6)}= 0.5433\dots\); the lower bound \(B_\infty> {1\over 2}\) was known. The author improves this to \(B_\infty> {1\over 2}+ 10^{- 335}\). Earlier, \textit{M. Bonk} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 110, 889-894 (1990; Zbl 0713.30033)] improved the lower bound on the Bloch constant \(B\) from \({1\over 2}\) to \({1\over 2}+ 10^{- 14}\); the first numerical improvement in the lower bound on the Bloch constant in over half a century. The method used by the author to improve the lower bound on the locally univalent Bloch constant is different from that employed by Bonk.