Complex Analysis

The first part of the volume contains a comprehensive description of the theory of entire and meromorphic functions of one complex variable and its applications. It includes the fundamental notions, methods and results on the growth of entire functions and the distribution of their zeros, the Rolf Nevanlinna theory of distribution of values of meromorphic functions including the inverse problem, the theory of completely regular growth, the concept of limit sets for entire and subharmonic functions.

This book is devoted to classical and modern achievements in complex analysis. In order to benefit most from it, a first-year university background is sufficient; all other statements and proofs are provided.

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Harry Ernest Rauch, who died suddenly on June 18, 1979. In organizing the volume we solicited: (i) articles summarizing Rauch's own work in differential geometry, complex analysis and theta functions (ii) articles which would give the reader an idea of the depth and breadth of Rauch's researches, interests, and influence, in the fields he investigated, and (iii) articles of high scientific quality which would be of general interest. In each of the areas to which Rauch made significant contribution - pinching theorems, teichmiiller theory, and theta functions as they apply to Riemann surfaces - there has been substantial progress.

The idea for this book came when I was an assistant at the Department of Mat- matics and Computer Science at the Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. S- eraltimesIfacedthetaskofsupportinglecturesandseminarsoncomplexanalysis of several variables and found out that there are very few books on the subject, compared to the vast amount of literature on function theory of one variable, let alone on real variables or basic algebra. Even fewer books, to my understanding, were written primarily with the student in mind. So it was quite hard to ?nd s- porting examples and exercises that helped the student to become familiar with the fascinating theory of several complex variables. Of course, there are notable exceptions, like the books of R.M. Range [9] or B. and L. Kaup [6], however, even those excellent books have a drawback: they are quite thick and thus quite expensive for a student’s budget. So an additional motivation to write this book was to give a comprehensive introduction to the theory of several complex variables, illustrate it with as many examples as I could ?nd and help the student to get deeper insight by giving lots of exercises, reaching from almost trivial to rather challenging. There are not many illustrations in this book, in fact, there is exactly one, becauseinthetheoryofseveralcomplexvariablesI?ndmostofthemeithertrivial or misleading. The readers are of course free to have a di?erent opinion on these matters.

The idea for this book came when I was an assistant at the Department of Mat- matics and Computer Science at the Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. S- eraltimesIfacedthetaskofsupportinglecturesandseminarsoncomplexanalysis of several variables and found out that there are very few books on the subject, compared to the vast amount of literature on function theory of one variable, let alone on real variables or basic algebra. Even fewer books, to my understanding, were written primarily with the student in mind. So it was quite hard to ?nd s- porting examples and exercises that helped the student to become familiar with the fascinating theory of several complex variables. Of course, there are notable exceptions, like the books of R.M. Range [9] or B. and L. Kaup [6], however, even those excellent books have a drawback: they are quite thick and thus quite expensive for a student’s budget. So an additional motivation to write this book was to give a comprehensive introduction to the theory of several complex variables, illustrate it with as many examples as I could ?nd and help the student to get deeper insight by giving lots of exercises, reaching from almost trivial to rather challenging. There are not many illustrations in this book, in fact, there is exactly one, becauseinthetheoryofseveralcomplexvariablesI?ndmostofthemeithertrivial or misleading. The readers are of course free to have a di?erent opinion on these matters.