Write . A compact H-hull is a bounded, relatively closed set for which is a simply connected domain. “Compact” refers to its compact closure in ; boundary points on can be adjoined without changing the remaining domain.
The Riemann mapping theorem and normalization at infinity give a unique mapping-out function of a compact H-hull with hydrodynamic normalization at infinity. By the Schwarz reflection principle outside a large disc, it has the Laurent series
The half-plane capacity is the coefficient
The empty compact H-hull has and half-plane capacity zero. Nonnegativity follows from the Brownian representation of half-plane capacity proved next.
For the vertical slit, choose the branch of asymptotic to at infinity. It is the mapping-out function of a compact H-hull for , and
Thus half-plane capacity of a vertical slit gives
The endpoint is merely part of the boundary closure convention.
For the filled upper half-disc , the conformal map maps the exterior half-disc onto . Indeed, it sends the semicircle to , the remaining real boundary to the complementary intervals, and its inverse is the branch of asymptotic to . Hence half-plane capacity of a half-disc gives
If denotes the open unit disc, the printed is not relatively closed and is literally not a compact H-hull. The intended value is the one for its filled relative closure . With a closed-disc convention the displayed notation already represents that hull.
For a nonempty compact H-hull , its closure meets : otherwise a nonempty compact set strictly inside would be separated from the lower half-plane in the complement, contradicting the simply connected domain condition for . Choose and put . Taking limits in the definition of diameter shows for every . Thus lies in the filled half-disc of radius centered at . Its half-plane capacity is by scaling and translation of half-plane capacity. Using monotonicity of half-plane capacity,
For the empty compact H-hull, use diameter zero. This proves the unit-constant version of half-plane capacity is bounded by squared diameter; no claim of optimality of the constant is needed.
Assume the domains are proper, so and are finite and positive, and interpret the conformal transformation as a bijection. Apply the Koebe quarter theorem to
The open ball lies in , so is a normalized univalent function. Its image inclusion shows that . Therefore , or .
Apply the same argument to the inverse conformal map, whose derivative at is . It gives . Thus the boundary-distance derivative bound for a conformal bijection is
The full domains need not be simply connected domains: only the two interior discs are used. If the whole plane is allowed as a domain, a conformal bijection onto another plane domain is affine and both domains are the whole plane. For example, and make both boundary distances infinite and the printed ratios undefined. This is a necessary proper-domain convention. Bijectivity also matters: the injective conformal map from the unit disc into itself has at zero but . Thus an interpretation allowing a map into, rather than onto, the second domain makes the lower bound false.
The chordal restriction property concerns the unparameterized trace law. Let be a compact H-hull with , and put . This conformal map takes onto , fixes and infinity, and has derivative one at infinity. On the event that the curve avoids , its image is a curve from to infinity in . Restriction requires positive avoidance probability for every admissible , and the conditional identity
up to increasing changes of the curve parameter. Equivalently, conditioning an SLE in a marked simply connected domain to stay in an admissible simply connected domain gives the same SLE law in that subdomain. The property does not assert that the original half-plane-capacity parameterization survives an arbitrary conformal map.
The boundary assertion is interpreted at positive finite times: a chordal SLE already starts on the domain boundary, and its marked target is another boundary point. The precise conclusion in the complex upper half-plane is almost surely.
For and a fixed real , the centered Boundary-point Bessel flow for SLE solves
Thus is a Bessel process driven by of dimension
The Hitting-zero classification for a Bessel process says that, started positively, it never hits zero when . For , reflect the equation and apply the same result. Therefore every fixed nonzero boundary point has infinite swallowing time. A countable intersection gives this simultaneously for all nonzero rational boundary points.
To extend this countable conclusion to every real , choose rational with . The difference of two centered boundary solutions satisfies
so it remains positive while both flows exist. On any finite time interval, is bounded away from zero, hence so is . Moreover remains bounded there, so the differential equation continues for the whole interval. Its uniform separation from the Loewner driving function also allows each flow map to continue as a holomorphic function on a complex neighborhood of . Thus is outside and cannot be visited by the Loewner trace. Reflection gives the negative real axis. This uses countably many Bessel processes followed by deterministic flow comparison, rather than an uncountable union of probability-zero events.
To exclude a return to the starting point, use the boundary extension of the inverse map for a continuous Loewner trace: is continuous on the closed complex upper half-plane and maps to . This follows from the continuous trace theorem and the Caratheodory boundary extension theorem; it does not assume simplicity. At each deterministic rational time , the Conformal Markov property of SLE makes the mapped future a fresh SLE, so its trace lies in by the preceding argument. Mapping back with therefore shows
If a point were revisited at , choose rational with . Such an exists because continuity and strictly increasing half-plane capacity forbid a constant trace on an interval. But , contradicting the displayed inclusion. This excludes all self-contacts, including returns to zero, and proves the simple curve property needed when discussing later swallowing times.
For , the deterministic Loewner trace is , so the conclusion follows directly. Hence the boundary-intersection threshold for SLE gives
Mapping to another marked simply connected domain carries positive-time points into its interior. The literal statement including the starting point is false, since is prescribed to be on the domain boundary.
A compact H-hull is a bounded subset , closed relative to the complex upper half-plane, such that is a simply connected domain. The word compact refers to its bounded closure in ; a nonempty hull need not be a compact subset of the open half-plane.
The Riemann mapping theorem and normalization at infinity give a unique mapping-out function of a compact H-hull with as . This hydrodynamic normalization at infinity yields a Laurent series
The coefficient is the half-plane capacity:
Let be simply connected domain with distinct marked boundary points , and choose a conformal map with and . Chordal from to is the unparameterized curve , where is chordal SLE in .
Any other such map is for some . The Scaling invariance of SLE says that has the same unparameterized law as ; only its capacity clock changes. Hence the pullback law is independent of . This proves the Conformal invariance of SLE definition is well-defined.
Let be the universal covering map. Since the complex plane is a simply connected domain, the lifting criterion for a covering space gives a holomorphic lift between one-dimensional complex tori such that
For every , the difference belongs to the discrete period lattice . It depends continuously on , so it is constant. Differentiating shows that the derivative is -periodic. It is bounded on the compact closure of a fundamental parallelogram, and periodicity makes it bounded on all of . The Liouville theorem therefore makes constant, and hence
Thus every holomorphic map has an affine lift of a holomorphic map between one-dimensional complex tori. If “map of complex tori” means an identity-preserving map, choose ; then , so is the required linear map. Without that convention the statement must say affine, since a nonzero translation in a group of the torus lifts to .
The Weierstrass elliptic function of is
The subtracted term gives the Normal convergence of the Weierstrass elliptic-function series away from . Put
The Laurent coefficients of the Weierstrass elliptic function at zero give
Set and . Direct substitution shows that the principal part and constant term of
vanish at zero. Since is an elliptic function, translation gives the same cancellation at every point of the period lattice. Every apparent isolated singularity is therefore a removable singularity, so is an entire function. It is periodic and hence bounded on the translates of a compact fundamental parallelogram. The Liouville theorem gives , which proves the Weierstrass elliptic differential equation
Finally suppose that is a biholomorphic group homomorphism. Its identity-preserving lift has the form by the first part. Since the inverse map also lifts linearly,
Choose a -basis of . Multiplication by is then represented by a unimodular matrix . As a real-linear transformation of , it has determinant ; hence and . The characteristic polynomial of and the Cayley-Hamilton theorem give
This already has the required form with and . Moreover , so forces . Thus is a root of unity, of order , , , , or , completing the description of an automorphism of a one-dimensional complex torus.
The Bendixson-Dulac criterion says the following. Let be a simply connected domain, let be continuously differentiable, and suppose there is a continuously differentiable function such that
has one sign throughout and does not vanish identically on any open subset. Then has no periodic orbit contained in .
Indeed, if a periodic orbit existed, simple connectivity would put its interior inside . The vector field , and hence , is tangent to , so its outward flux is zero. The divergence theorem would give
contradicting the sign hypothesis.
The Poincare-Bendixson theorem states that a nonempty compact omega-limit set of a continuously differentiable planar flow that contains no equilibrium point is a periodic orbit. More generally, when the omega-limit set contains only finitely many equilibria, it is either an equilibrium, a periodic orbit, or a union of equilibria and connecting trajectories.
Suppose first that is harmonic. Since
the Cauchy-Riemann equations show that
is holomorphic on . An open disc is a simply connected domain, so has a holomorphic primitive . If , then
Thus has zero gradient and is constant on the connected disc. Subtracting that real constant from gives
Conversely, if for a holomorphic , differentiating the Cauchy-Riemann equations gives
Hence is harmonic. This proves the harmonic function as the real part of a holomorphic function criterion on .
Since is simply connected, write
for an entire function . If were bounded above, then
would be bounded, so the Liouville theorem would make constant. Its derivative would then vanish, whence and would be constant. Applying the same argument to rules out a lower bound. Thus a nonconstant is unbounded both above and below.
Given any , choose with
The restriction of to the line segment from to is continuous, so the intermediate value theorem supplies a point on that segment where . Therefore
This proves the surjectivity of a nonconstant entire harmonic function.
Part (c) gives
The half-space is a simply connected domain, so the Poincare lemma makes this curl-free field a conservative vector field: it is the gradient of a single-valued scalar potential.
Using ,
The spherical-coordinate formula from part (b) shows that a potential must satisfy and may be independent of . On the azimuthal angle has the single-valued branch
Hence one solution, up to an additive constant, is
Put
This slit complex plane is a simply connected domain. On there is one branch of that equals at zero, and its reciprocal is holomorphic. The primitive of a holomorphic function on a simply connected domain therefore makes the integral from zero path-independent, so is single-valued.
For unrestricted paths, going once around either branch point changes the sign of the square root. The resulting analytic continuation therefore need not return to the original germ, and the value of can depend on the path.
The additional branch points lie on the two deleted rays because . On the same simply connected domain
choose both square roots to equal at zero. Their product has a single-valued holomorphic reciprocal on , so its integral from zero defines the single-valued branch of the elliptic integral of the first kind.
An unrestricted contour may wind around any of . Continuation around one such point flips one square root, so the value can change by square-root monodromy. Thus is multivalued.
A compact H-hull is a bounded relatively closed set for which is a simply connected domain. The Riemann mapping theorem and hydrodynamic normalization at infinity give a unique mapping-out function of a compact H-hull with
The coefficient is the half-plane capacity .
For and , uniqueness of the normalized map gives
Substituting the expansion of yields
Therefore the scaling and translation of half-plane capacity is
Let . Unless is empty, its closure meets the real axis; otherwise a loop in surrounding could not contract, contrary to being a simply connected domain. Choose . Then .
The unit half-disc is a compact H-hull with mapping-out function , so its half-plane capacity is one. The monotonicity of half-plane capacity and its scaling rule now give
Thus the assertion holds with the universal constant under this normalization.