Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 11 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Zeros are counted with their prescribed finite multiplicities, and the function is not identically zero. The criterion for zero sets in the unit disc is local finiteness: no point of the disc is an accumulation point of the zero sequence, and no point has infinite multiplicity. Necessity follows from the identity theorem for holomorphic functions. For sufficiency, factor a finite number of zeros at zero as . For an infinite sequence of remaining zeros , local finiteness implies . With Weierstrass elementary factorsuse . On each compact subdisc, eventually and the logarithm of the tail factor is , bounded in modulus by . These bounds are summable, so infinite product convergence from logarithmic tails gives locally uniform convergence and nonvanishing away from the listed zeros. Its finite initial factors give exactly their multiplicities. For a finite sequence an ordinary polynomial suffices.
Use the curvature-minus-one hyperbolic metric, with length element . Integrating radially givesTherefore the printed sum condition is equivalent to the Blaschke condition .
To prove necessity for bounded , first suppose and choose a radius with no zero on its circle. Remove the finitely many factors for . The logarithm of the modulus of the remaining zero-free function is harmonic on the closed disc. Its mean value property, together with the mean of being for (expand the logarithm in powers of ), proves Jensen's formulaLet through such radii. Each summand increases to , and for by integration of . Consequently . If has order at zero, apply the argument to , which is still bounded: outside it is bounded by , and inside use the maximum modulus principle. Add the finite contribution of the zeros at zero.
For sufficiency use a Blaschke product. For its normalized Blaschke factor isOn , . The Blaschke condition thus makes the product converge locally uniformly; outside the specified zeros, the tail logarithms converge absolutely and the product is nonzero. Each factor has modulus at most one in the disc, so the limit is bounded by one. A factor supplies any finite multiplicity at zero. This proves
For any point not among the zeros, the pseudohyperbolic distance formula givesApply the proved inequality with to obtain . Sum over finite products and pass to the limit, including factors at zero. This givesThe sum is finite: the triangle inequality gives . If is itself a zero, and the same bound is immediate, so no substitution at the excluded value is needed. A unimodular constant in has no effect.