The analytic content is not semiadditive (Q6653889)

Let \(\mathcal{C}(K)\) be the algebra of all complex continuous functions \(g\) defined on a compact set \(K\subset\mathbb{C}\) and endowed with the uniform norm \(\|g\|_K=\max\limits_K|g|\). Given the subalgebra \(R(K)\) of all \(g\in\mathcal{C}(K)\) which can be uniformly approximated on \(K\) by rational (meromorphic) functions with poles outside \(K\), the analytic content \(\lambda(K)\) is defined as the uniform distance from the complex conjugate function \(z\mapsto\bar{z}\) to the uniform algebra \(R(K)\); i.e., \(\lambda(K)=\inf\limits_{h\in R(K)}\|h(z)-\bar z\|_K\). It is shown that the analytic content \(\lambda(\cdot)\) is neither subadditive nor semiadditive. Thus, given any integer \(n\geq1\), it is proven that each compactum \(K\) can be decomposed as the union of two new compact sets \(E_1\) and \(E_2\) with \(\lambda(E_j)\leq1/n\) for \(j=1,2\). Moreover, it is also show that no compactum \(K\) with positive analytic content can be decomposed as the countable union of compact sets of zero analytic content. More precisely, Let \(\{K_j\}_{j\geq1}\) be a countable collection of compact sets in \(\mathbb{C}\), whose analytic content \(\lambda(K_j)=0\) for every \(j\geq1\). If \(K=\bigcup_{j\geq1}K_j\) is compact, then \(\lambda(K)=0\).