On conjectures of Arakelyan and Littlewood (Q1106976)

The paper presents a progress in two long-standing problems of function theory. Theorem 1. Let \(\phi\) (n) be the supremum of the quantity \[ \iint_{| z| <1}| g'| /(1+| g|^ 2)dx dy \] taken over the set of all polynomials g of degree n. Then \(\phi (n)\leq cn^{-\beta}\) with some absolute constants \(c>0\) and \(\beta >0.\) This theorem proves a conjecture of J. E. Littlewood which has remarkable consequences in the theory of entire functions. It was known that \(\phi (n)=o(\sqrt{n})\), \(n\to \infty\) (\textit{A. Eh. Eremenko} and \textit{M. Sodin}, Math. USSR, Izv. 30, No.2, 395-402 (1988; Zbl 0638.30029)). Theorem 2. Let f be an entire function of finite lower order. Then \[ (1)\quad \sum_{a\in {\mathbb{C}}}\delta (a,f)^{1/3-\alpha}<\infty \] where \(\delta\) is the Nevanlinna deficiency and \(\alpha >0\) is an absolute constant. It was known that (1) holds with \(\alpha =0\) for meromorphic functions of finite lower order and N. U. Arakelyan conjectured that \[ \sum_{a\in {\mathbb{C}}}| \log \delta (a,f)|^{-1}<\infty \] under the conditions of Theorem 2. Both theorems are proved by similar methods based on the estimates of the size of support of harmonic measure due to \textit{J. Bourgain} [Invent. Math. 87, 477-483 (1987; Zbl 0616.31004)]. The way of reducing Theorem 1 to a problem of potential theory used in the paper was indicated for the first time by Eremenko and Sodin (loc. cit.) The constants \(\beta\) and \(\alpha\) are \(\sim 2^{-260}\) and this seems far from being best possible.