Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / iii / Paper 203 / 2 / e / Solution

A nearly closed semicircular slit makes the constant sharp. PutThis is the unit-circle arc attached at $-1$ and ending just short of $1$. Its complement is a simply connected domain. There remains a narrow passage near $1$ connecting the interior bay to infinity. Thus $K_L$ is a compact H-hull inside the closed unit disc.

For an explicit check, let $S=\sqrt{1+L^2}$ and let $q_L(z)=\sqrt{m(z{)}^2+L^2}$ denote the mapping-out function of a vertical slit applied to $m(z)$, with the branch asymptotic to its argument in the slit half-plane. Its normalized map isThe final Möbius transformation takes the image of the original infinity to infinity and gives hydrodynamic normalization at infinity. For a fixed $z$ in the open unit half-disc, $\mathrm{Re}m(z)>0$, so $q_L(z)\sim L$ and $g_{K_L}(z)\to 2$ as $L\to \infty$. Now take $z_{\delta }=-1+\delta +i\delta$, with $0<\delta <1$. First let $L\to \infty$, then let $\delta \downarrow 0$. The nearly closed semicircular slit givesEvery constant smaller than three therefore fails for some member of this family and some interior point. The bound need not be attained at an interior point of a single fixed hull.