Normal families and fixed points of iterates (Q973732)

The paper is motivated by a problem, posed in 1992 by \textit{Lo Yang} (see Problem 8 in [\textit{Lo Yang}, Some recent results and problems in the theory of value-distribution. Proceedings of the symposium on value distribution theory in several complex variables, Notre Dame, IN, USA, April 28-29, 1990 on the occasion of the inauguration of Wilhelm Stoll as the Vincent F. Duncan and Annamarie Micus Duncan Professor of Mathematics. Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame Math. Lect. 12, 157--171 (1992; Zbl 0869.30026)]): \textit{Let \(\mathcal F\) be a family of entire functions, let \(D\subset\mathbb C\) be a domain and let \(n\geq 2\) be a fixed integer. Suppose that for every \(f\in \mathcal F\) the n-th iterate \(f^n\) does not have fixed points in \(D\). Is \(\mathcal F\) normal in \(D\)? } In 1998 \textit{M. Essén} and \textit{S. Wu} [Complex Variables, Theory Appl. 37, No. 1-4, 171--178 (1998; Zbl 1054.30524)] gave an affirmative answer to this question. In a subsequent paper [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 62, No.1, 139--148 (2000; Zbl 0955.30026)], they proved a more general result: \textit{Let \(D\subset\mathbb C\) be a domain and let \(\mathcal F\) be the family of all holomorphic functions \(f : D \to \mathbb C\) for which there exists \(n = n(f) > 1\) such that \(f^n\) has no repelling fixed points. Then \(\mathcal F\) is normal.} (The iterates \(f^n\) are defined in the corresponding domains \(D_n\), obtained via the recurrent relations \(D_1:=D\), \(D_{n+1}:= f^{-1}(D_{n})\).) Since then there has been a number of further developments related to Yang Lo's question. In particular, the author proved earlier [Agranovsky, Mark (ed.) et al., Complex analysis and dynamical systems II. Proceedings of the 2nd conference in honor of Professor Lawrence Zalcman's sixtieth birthday, Nahariya, Israel, June 9--12, 2003. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS); Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University. Israel Mathematical Conference Proceedings, Contemp. Math. 382, 55--63 (2005; Zbl 1089.30028)] that, \textit{for each integer \(n \geq 2\), there exists a constant \(K_n > 1\) with the following property: if \(\mathcal F\) is a family of holomorphic functions in a domain \(D\subset\mathbb C\) such that \(|(f^n)'(\xi)| \leq K_n\) for all fixed points \(\xi\) of \(f^n\), then \(\mathcal F\) is normal.} The present paper is devoted to the sharp upper estimates of the constants \(K_n\) for which the above statement holds. The example \(\mathcal F:=\{az^2\}_{a\in\mathbb C\setminus\{0\}}\) shows that \(K_n<2^n\). The author conjectures that, for each integer \(n \geq 2\), the statement under consideration is true with \textit{any \(K_n<2^n\)}. He proves this conjecture for \(n=2\) and shows that one can take any \(K_n < C_n\), where \[ C_n:=\inf_{p}\max\Big\{ \big|(p^n)'(\xi)\big|: \xi \text{ is a fixed point of }p^n\Big\}, \] and the infimum is taken over all polynomials \(p\) of degree at least \(2\). Motivated by the connection between the original problem and iterated polynomials, the author puts forward the stronger conjecture that, \textit{for any polynomial \(p\) of degree \(d\geq 2\) and any integer \(n\geq2\), there exists a fixed point \(\xi\) of \(p^n\) such that \(|(p^n)'(\xi)|\geq d^n\).}