On fixed-points and singular values of transcendental meromorphic functions (Q973743)

This paper is devoted to the relation between the singular values and the fixed points of a transcendental meromorphic function. A singular value of a meromorphic function \(f\) is a point \(a\in\overline{\mathbb C}\) such that the preimage \(f^{-1}(\mathcal O)\) of any neighbourhood \(\mathcal O\) of \(a\) contains a connected component on which \(f\) is not injective. Every singular value is either a critical value or an asymptotic value (i.e. the limit of \(f\) along a path tending to \(\infty\)). Let \(S(f)\) stand for the closure of the set of all singular values of \(f\). The asymptotic characteristic of how sparse the set \(S\) is near \(\infty\) is given by \[ \mathrm{Mod}_0^0(f,R):=\sup\Big\{\log (\beta/\alpha): R\leq\alpha<\beta<+\infty,\,\{z:\alpha<|z|<\beta\}\subset\mathbb C\setminus S(f)\Big\}. \] The density of the fixed points can be described with the help of the classical Nevanlinna functions (characteristic, proximity function, counting function) \[ \begin{aligned} T(r,f)&:=m(r,f)+N(r,f),\\ m(r,f)&:=\frac1{2\pi}\int_0^{2\pi}\log^+|f(re^{it})|,\\ N(r,f)&:=\int_0^r \frac{n(t,f)-n(0,f)}{t}dt+n(0,f)\log r, \end{aligned} \] where \(\log^+x:=\max\{0,\log x\}\), \(n(t,f)\) is the number of poles of \(f\) in \(\{z:|z|<r\}\) counting multiplicity and \(n(0,f)\) is the multiplicity of the pole at the origin. The deficiency of a value \(a\in\mathbb C\) is defined by \[ \delta(a,f):=\liminf_{r\to+\infty} \frac{m(r,\tfrac{1}{f-a})}{T(r,f)}. \] \textit{J. K. Langley} and \textit{J. H. Zheng} [Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Math. 23, No. 1, 133--150 (1998; Zbl 0892.30028)] proved previously that if \(S(f)\setminus\{\infty\}\) is bounded, then \(\delta(0,f-h)=0\) for any rational function \(h\) with \(h(\infty)=\infty\). The meaning of \(\delta(0,f-h)=0\) is that \(f(z)-h(z)\) has a large quantity of zeros, which implies, in case \(h(z)\equiv z\), that \(f(z)\) has a lot of fixed points. Extending this result, the author proves the following theorem. \textbf{Theorem 1.} Let \(f\) be a transcendental meromorphic function with finitely many poles and \(h\) a rational function of degree \(d>0\) such that \(h(\infty)=\infty\). If for all \(R>0\) large enough \(\text{Mod}_0^0(f,R)>\Sigma_d:=\exp(d(2\kappa+1)\pi/\sqrt 2)\), where \(\kappa:=\Gamma(1/4)^2/(4\pi^2)\), then \(\delta(0,f-h)=0\). The following result demonstrates the dependence between the density of singular values and that of repelling fixed points. \textbf{Theorem 2.} Let \(f\) be a transcendental meromorphic function with finitely many poles. Suppose that for some \(\sigma\in\big(1,\root4\of{\Sigma}_1\big]\) we have \[ \liminf_{r\to+\infty}\frac{T(\sigma r,f)}{T(r,f)}>3. \] If for all \(R>0\) large enough \(\mathrm{Mod}_0^0(f,R)>\Sigma_1\), then \[ n_{\text{rep}}(r,f)\neq o\big(T(r,f)\big), \] where \(n_{\text{rep}}(r,f)\) is the number of repelling fixed points of \(f\) in \(\{z:\Sigma_1^{-1}r<|z|<r\}\). For the case of entire functions the method employed by the author can be also used for the iterates, which leads to the following result. \textbf{Theorem 3.} Let \(f\) be a transcendental entire function. Suppose that \(S(f)\setminus\{\infty\}\) is bounded. Then \[ \overline{N}_m\left(r,\dfrac1{f^{\circ m}-z}\right)=(1+o(1))T(r,f^{\circ m}) \] as \(E_m\not\ni r\to+\infty\), where \[ \overline{N}_m\left(r,\dfrac1{f^{\circ m}-z}\right):=\int_1^r\frac{\overline{n}_m(t)}tdt, \] \(\overline{n}_m(t)\) is the number of distinct periodic points of order \(m\) and \(E_m\) is a set of finite linear measure on \([0,+\infty)\).