Smallness sets for bounded holomorphic functions (Q5926432)

A sequence \(\{a_n\}\) in the unit disk \(D\) is said to be \(H^\infty\) thin when there exists a function \(f\in H^\infty\), \(f\not\equiv 0\), such that \(\sum_k(1-|a_k||f(a_k) |<\infty\). A sequence that is not thin is said to be thick. For \(z,w\in D\), let \(d(z,w)=|{z-w\over 1-\overline wz}|\). A sequence \(\{a_k\}\) is said to be separated if \(\inf_{k\neq j}d(a_k, a_j)>0\). Given \(a\in D\setminus\{0\}\) and \(\gamma>0\), define \(I_\gamma (a)\) to be the arc of \(\partial D\) with center \({a\over|a|}\) and length \(\gamma(1-|a|)\). Given a sequence of points \(\{a_k\}\in D\), define a function \[ \Gamma_\gamma (\zeta)=\# \bigl\{k: \zeta\in I_\gamma(a_k) \bigr\}= \sum \chi_k(\zeta),\;\zeta\in \partial D, \] where \(\chi_k\) denotes the characteristic function of the arc \(I_\gamma(a_k)\). The authors prove that for a separated sequence of points \(\{a_k\}\) in \(D\), both of the following hold: (a) if there exists \(\gamma>0\) such that \(\log_+\Gamma_\gamma\in L^1(\partial D)\), then \(\{a_k\}\) is thin, and (b) if \(\{a_k\}\) is thin, then \(\log_+\gamma_\gamma\) is weak \(L^1\), that is, there exists a constant \(C=C(\gamma)\) such that for each \(\gamma>0\), \[ \biggl|\bigl\{\theta \in[0,1\pi): \log_+\Gamma_\gamma (e^{i \theta})\geq \lambda \bigr\}\biggr|\leq{C\over \lambda},\quad \text{for all } \lambda>0. \] The condition given in (a) is not necessary for a sequence to be thin, and the condition given in (b) is not sufficient. A sequence \(\{a_k\}\) is called invariantly thin if there exists a function \(f\in H^\infty\), \(f\not\equiv 0\), such that sup \(\sum(1- |\varphi (a_k)|) |f(a_k)|<\infty\), where the supremum is taken over all automorphisms \(\varphi\) of \(D\) onto itself. It is proved that an invariantly thin separated sequence is an interpolating sequence. A non-increasing function \(g\) from \([0,1)\) to \((0,\infty)\), where \(g(x) \to 0\) as \(x\to 1\), is called an essential minorant for \(H^\infty\) when, for each non-Blaschke separated sequence \(\{a_k\}\subset D\), each function \(f\in H^\infty\) satisfying \(|f(a_k)|\leq g(|a_k |)\) for each \(k\) must vanish identically. The authors include in this paper a result with proof due to Alexander Borichev: a nonincreasing function \(g\) from \([0,1)\) to \((0, \infty)\) is an essential minorant on thick sets if and only if \(\liminf_{r\to 1}{-\log (g(r)) \over\log (|\log (1-r)|)}>0\).