Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 4 12F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The set is compact, and its complement is connected: two disjoint closed disks do not enclose any bounded complementary component. Since is holomorphic on the open neighbourhood of , the polynomial Runge theorem gives, for each , a polynomial such thatHence
Define a function on the disconnected open set byIt is holomorphic on . Applying the first part produces polynomials with
For an obstruction, takeThese are disjoint nonempty bounded closed sets. If polynomials converged uniformly to zero on , the maximum modulus principle on a bounded domain would giveThey therefore cannot also satisfy . Thus this pair has the requested non-approximation property.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ib Paper 3 13G Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
Rouché's theorem states that if and are holomorphic functions on a neighbourhood of the closure of a bounded domain andon its positively oriented boundary, then and have the same number of zeros in the domain, counted with multiplicity.
The Open mapping theorem states that a nonconstant holomorphic function on a domain maps every open subset to an open subset. To prove it, fix and put . By the identity theorem, the zeros of are isolated. Choose so that the closed disc lies in the domain and is the only zero of in that disc. ThenWhenever , the constant has modulus smaller than on the circle. The Rouche theorem therefore says thathas the same positive number of zeros in the disc as . Thus every lies in the image of , proving that the image is open.
If had a local maximum at , take a small open disc on which . The restriction of to cannot be constant, since the identity theorem would then make constant on the whole domain. The complex open mapping theorem says that is an open neighbourhood of , and such a neighbourhood contains points of modulus greater than , a contradiction. This proves the maximum modulus principle from the complex open mapping theorem.
Now let be bounded. Its closure is compact, so the continuous function attains a maximum there. If is nonconstant, the maximum modulus principle excludes an interior maximum; if is constant, the claimed bound is immediate. Hencewhich is the maximum modulus principle on a bounded domain.
Finally let and suppose throughout . Fix . The principal complex logarithm is holomorphic on the right half-plane, so for each positive integer the functionis holomorphic on and continuous on its closure. Given , choose so large thatApply the bounded-domain result to on . On the vertical part of the boundary, and hence . On the circular part,It follows thatLetting and then gives . Since was arbitrary, this proves the bounded half-plane maximum principle.
The boundedness assumption is necessary. The functionis holomorphic on and continuous on its closure, and on the boundary, but is unbounded for real . Thus the boundary estimate does not control an unbounded holomorphic function on this unbounded domain.