Under the Cayley transform between the half-plane and disk, a radial segment ending at a boundary point becomes a vertical half-ray. If a point is within hyperbolic distance of that half-ray, it lies in a fixed angular sector. Indeed, in the complex upper half-plane, . This converts bounded hyperbolic approach to a boundary point into nontangential approach, allowing normal-family proof of angular boundary convergence to transfer radial limits of bounded holomorphic functions.
A normal family of holomorphic functions on a domain is one from which every sequence has a subsequence converging locally uniformly to a holomorphic function, or locally uniformly to infinity in the extended convention. For a bounded family, only finite limits occur.
For functions mapping a plane domain into the unit disc, the Cauchy integral formula supplies uniform derivative bounds on each compact subset. More explicitly, if a closed disc of radius around lies in , the Cauchy estimate gives . A slightly larger compact neighborhood of any given compact set therefore gives uniform boundedness and equicontinuity there. Apply the Arzelà-Ascoli theorem on a compact exhaustion and take a diagonal subsequence. Its limit is locally uniform; the Cauchy integral formula shows that the limit is holomorphic. This proves normality rather than merely invoking it.
Now let on the complex upper half-plane. Every dilation has the same bound, so the argument just given, after scaling the bound if necessary, proves that is a normal family. For any sequence , every locally uniform subsequential limit satisfies
The identity theorem for holomorphic functions forces . It follows that locally uniformly as : otherwise a sequence violating convergence on one compact set would have a convergent subsequence with this same constant limit, a contradiction.
For , the arc is a compact subset of the complex upper half-plane. Write with . Local uniform convergence of the dilations gives
For the specified sector is empty. This is the same compactness mechanism as the normal-family proof of angular boundary convergence.
To transfer the result to the unit disc, use the Cayley transform between the half-plane and disk
It sends to with , so as . Choose the curvature-minus-one normalization of the hyperbolic metric, for which the disc line element is and the half-plane line element is . The Cayley transform between the half-plane and disk preserves these metrics. For and ,
Thus implies . This is the hyperbolic tube around a radial segment estimate. It places in a fixed sector bounded away from the real axis. Moreover implies . Applying the sector result gives
A different constant normalization of the hyperbolic metric only rescales and gives the same conclusion.
A normal family is a family such that every sequence has a subsequence converging locally uniformly in the spherical metric to a meromorphic limit, possibly the constant infinity. For a family uniformly bounded in modulus, the possible limits are finite holomorphic functions, and ordinary locally uniform convergence suffices. The limit need not take values in the open unit disc; a sequence of constants can approach its boundary.
Here is a direct compactness proof for disc-valued maps. For each compact subset , choose a slightly larger compact neighborhood contained in . The Cauchy estimate on a fixed-radius disk around each point bounds independently of because . A finite covering of yields uniform boundedness and equicontinuity there. The Arzelà-Ascoli theorem, applied successively to a compact exhaustion and followed by a diagonal subsequence, gives a limit uniformly on every compact. The Cauchy integral formula passes to that limit on small circles, proving it is a holomorphic function. This proves the required normal family assertion rather than just invoking Montel theorem.
Every is a holomorphic function on the complex upper half-plane with values in the unit disc, so the same argument makes a normal family. If a subsequence converges locally uniformly to , then for every ,
The identity theorem for holomorphic functions gives . Since every convergent subsequence has this same limit, the whole sequence converges locally uniformly to : otherwise a compact set and a subsequence with a fixed positive discrepancy would have a further locally uniformly convergent subsequence, a contradiction.
To obtain the nontangential limit, take any with and . Put . Then , , and the points lie, for large , in a fixed compact rectangle inside the half-plane. Therefore
This is the normal-family proof of angular boundary convergence; using integer rescalings requires this step because the points need not lie exactly on one fixed scaled ray.
For a tangential counterexample, use
If with , then , so is a holomorphic function and . Also . But
Their ratio tends to infinity. Thus the nontangential limit is zero while the unrestricted boundary limit does not exist.