The univalent Bloch-Landau constant, harmonic symmetry and conformal glueing (Q734319)

Let \(R_D\) be the supremum radius of all disks contained in a planar domain \(D\), this geometric quantity is known as the inradius of the domain. Let \(\mathbb D\) be the disk with centre zero and radius one in the complex plane. Let us suppose that \(f\) is a univalent map of \(\mathbb D\). There is a number \(\mathcal U\), independent of \(f\), such that \[ R_{f(\mathbb D)}\geqslant \mathcal U|f'(0)|. \tag{1} \] Thus the image of the unit disk under any univalent map \(f\) of \(\mathbb D\), for every \(r<\mathcal U|f'(0)|\), contains some disk of radius \(r\). The number \(\mathcal U\), known as the univalent or schlicht Bloch-Landau constant, is the largest number for which (1) holds, that is, if \(U >\mathcal U\), then there is a conformal mapping \(f\) of the unit disk for which \(f(\mathbb D)\) contains no disk of radius \(U|f'(0)|\). Modifying a domain as first suggested by Ruth Goodman in 1945 and using the explicit solution of Fedorov of the Pólya-Chebotarev problem in the case of four symmetrically placed points, an improved upper bound for the univalent Bloch-Landau constant is obtained: {Theorem 1.} There is a simply connected domain \(D_0\), that has inradius 1, and a conformal map \(f\) of the unit disk \(\mathbb D\) onto \(D_0\) for which \[ \mathcal U \leqslant \frac{1}{f(0)} 0.6563937. \] The domain that leads to this improved bound has the form of a disk from which some arcs are removed in such a way that the resulting simply connected domain is harmonically symmetric in each arc with respect to the origin. The existence of domains of this type is established using techniques from conformal welding: {Theorem 2.} Suppose that \(n\) positive numbers \(a_1\), \(a_2\),\dots, \(a_n\) and \(n\) non-negative numbers \(b_1\), \(b_2\),\dots,\(b_n\) are specified with \[ \sum_{k=1}^n a_k < 1\quad \text{and}\quad\sum_{k=1}^n a_k +\sum_{k=1}^n b_k = 1. \] There is an admissible family of real analytic arcs \(\Gamma = \{\gamma_1,\gamma_2,\dots ,\gamma_n\}\) such that {\parindent=6mm\begin{itemize}\item[1)] each arc \(\gamma_k\) has harmonic measure \(a_k\) at 0 with respect to \(D(\Gamma)\), \item[2)] the domain D(F) is harmonically symmetric in each arc \(\gamma_k\) with respect to 0, \item[3)] the endpoints of the arcs on the unit circle, which we denote by \(\zeta_1,\zeta_2,\dots,\zeta_n\), respectively, are in anticlockwise order and, moreover, the harmonic measure at 0 and with respect to \(D(\Gamma)\) of the anticlockwise arc of the unit circle from \(\zeta_k\) to \(\zeta_{k+1}\) is \(b_k\), for \(k =1, 2,\dots,n-1\). \end{itemize}} This configuration is unique up to rotation. Some general properties of harmonically symmetric arcs in this setting are established.