§9.3 Boundary Continuity of Biholomorphisms
9.3 Boundary Continuity of Biholomorphisms
Suppose and are two regions in the complex plane such that there is a biholomorphism from to . Naturally, we are concerned about the existence of a continuous extension of to .
In fact, it is almost always true that such an extension exists. We will give three examples of this phenomenon, each with increasing regularity assumptions on the boundaries and :
- If and are two Jordan curves, then (whose existence is given by the Riemann Mapping Theorem or Theorem 5.3.2) extends homeomorphically to (Theorem 9.3.3).
- If and are Jordan curves, then extends continuously and injectively to and is on .
- If and are real-analytic Jordan curves (the boundary is parameterizable by functions such that at every point, there is a power series expansion that converge to the function on a neighborhood), then extends analytically past (Theorem 9.3.14).
Example 9.3.1.
Let
be an open, simply connected region with a comb-shaped boundary (Figure 9.3). By the Riemann Mapping Theorem, it is conformally equivalent to via some biholomorphism . Then there is no homeomorphism whose restriction to is .Proof.
Suppose that such a homeomorphism exists. Since and is bijective, it restricts to a homeomorphism from onto . Here
Consider the comb “tooth” . If its base point is removed from , there is no path in the remaining boundary from to the rest of , since meets the rest of the boundary only at (topologically, this is known as a “cut point”). Hence is not path-connected. However, removing from the circle leaves an open, path-connected arc.
Then is a homeomorphism. Let , be two arbitrary points. Then there exists an arc in joining and . Then the image of this arc under is a path joining and , a contradiction. Thus no such homeomorphism exists.
Example 9.3.2.
The biholomorphism defined by
extends continuously but not differentiably to . The boundary of is piecewise .Theorem 9.3.3 (Osgood–Taylor–Carathéodory).
Suppose that and are two bounded regions in such that and each comprises a single Jordan curve. If is a biholomorphism (provided by the Riemann Mapping Theorem in Theorem 5.3.2), then homeomorphic such that (the restriction of to agrees with ).Proof.
The theorem will be first proven in the case that is the unit disk . The general case will then be reduced to this special case.
Let be two curves such that and , (as in Figure 9.4). We now aim to show that (existence and equality).
Let , which has a finite area. Since is a biholomorphism, also has a finite area (call this ) and is simply connected since its complement in , , is connected.
Let be compact. Since is continuous, it maps to a compact set (a function providing the compactness of the pre-image of every compact set is more generally known as proper). This implies that for any sequence with accumulation points only in , will have its accumulation points in (because otherwise, there would be a corresponding subsequence of that converges to a point in ). Therefore, does not have relatively compact closure in (a representation of a possible configuration in Figure 9.5).
For , we now introduce polar coordinates centered at with angles offset by . Let be the supremum of for fixed such that . Define to be the curve with (as in Figure 9.6).
Lemma 9.3.4.
Let be the length of . Then
is finite.Assume that such that for all . Then, this implies that
which is a divergent integral. This contradicts Lemma 9.3.4. Therefore, we must have . Thus, there exists a sequence such that and as .
Proposition 9.3.5.
For each such as above, the limits
exist.Proof.
Since is finite, , such that for ,
Then for any ,
implying that is Cauchy and hence convergent. The proof for the other limit follows symmetrically. Lemma 9.3.6.
Let . Then there is a function defined for sufficiently small , such that as , such that for all satisfying , then there is exactly one curve in with endpoints and with diameter .Proof.
Since is a Jordan curve, it admits a homeomorphic parameterization , and is a bicontinuous bijection (onto its image) between compact Hausdorff spaces, so is continuous.
Since is uniformly continuous on the compact set , for every there exists such that if with , then .
In particular, choose small enough so that whenever , then .
Now define
for , where and is the shorter arc connecting .
First, as ; if not, there exists and a sequence with . Then for each , there are with such that the shorter arc on between and has image with . By compactness of , we may assume (by passing to a subsequence if necessary) that and . Then , so . But then the images of the shorter arcs between each and must have diameters tending to zero (by continuity of ), contradicting that for each .
To finish, choose small enough that (possible since as and ).
Then the assertion holds for all with this : for with , let with , . The shorter arc on between has image with . The image of the other arc on between , , satisfies
which is sufficient to imply that
Thus, exactly one arc’s image (specifically, the image of the shorter arc on ) has diameter .
By the uniqueness as described by Lemma 9.3.6, for any two points sufficiently close together, we now identify the unique curve in (joining and ) with diameter less than as the smaller arc of joining and , denoted by .
Lemma 9.3.7.
Let be the sequence such that as (in the discussion preceding Proposition 9.3.5). Then, for each , either
or
is satisfied. The two situations are represented in Figure 9.8.Proof.
By virtue of Proposition 9.3.5, both described limits exist. Similarly, since any sequences and approach , their images under approach by properness (refer to the discussions preceding Lemma 9.3.4). Therefore, both limits must lie in , and the conclusion follows. For fixed , in the case of (9.3.1), let be the described curve joining and (where is represented by the arc as labeled in Figure 9.7). Except for the two boundary points, the curve lies entirely in since . Let the shorter arc on joining the two points and be denoted by . Therefore, the curve forms a Jordan curve (simplicity by injectivity).
In the event that (9.3.2) is assumed, let , and forms a Jordan curve. By the Jordan Curve Theorem (Theorem 1.2.5), the selected curve bounds a region, which we will denote by .
For each , let . Since is a curve with endpoints and (or ) and lies in except for its endpoints, it splits into two disconnected regions, or . Since splits into two regions, one of which being , the image is either or .
Proposition 9.3.8.
As ,
Proof.
Lemma 9.3.6 provides the existence of such that for sufficiently large (since or for the case) such that as .
Let (or in the case of the same point) for each . By the previous diameter estimate, the entire Jordan curve lies in , and hence . This implies that
Lemma 9.3.9.
For sufficiently large , .Proof.
For fixed , let be the complementary region of in (as ). Then for an arbitrary , there exists a point (specifically, either in or ) such that .
- If , then and connectivity suffices to ensure that .
If , then from , connectivity implies that . Now by the Lusin Area Theorem (Theorem 3.1.1),
Since shrinks to the empty set, as , and hence
Proposition 9.3.8 implies that
as . Hence, for sufficiently large , we cannot have (by the induced contradiction with (9.3.4)). Therefore, and .
Lemma 9.3.10.
If the two complex curves map to such that , then
exist and are equal.Proof.
By Lemma 9.3.9 and Proposition 9.3.8, such that and . Since as , such that , and . Recall the definition of as the set of points ; then for all . Therefore,
for all . Then
for all , thus equality is derived. Moreover, shrinks to a single point, which is precisely the prescribed limit. Corollary 9.3.10.1.
There is a continuous extension of to .Proof.
Let . Let satisfy and . Suppose . Then by Lemma 9.3.10, exists and is independent of the choice of . Now define to be the unique value of this limit and let .
Fix and suppose be a sequence such that as . By Lemma 9.3.9 and Proposition 9.3.8, such that and . By the geometry of , such that , there exists some such that the line segment lies in . By the previous result, we have
Hence, any two for satisfy . Hence, is Cauchy and hence convergent to .
This is sufficient to show that is continuous at . Indeed, assuming otherwise implies such that , within apart from such that . Let , and hence with the sequence converging to . By the previous result, , which contradicts for all . The same argument can be repeated to show that is continuous at every point of .
Proposition 9.3.11.
Let such that is holomorphic on . If there exists an open arc such that on ( is some complex constant), then is constant on .Proof.
Without loss of generality, assume . If , then by the continuity of , it attains its maximum somewhere in (by the Extreme Value Theorem in Theorem 1.2.23). If attains its maximum at some , it must be an isolated extrema (otherwise the Identity Theorem implies constancy on all of ), and thus the Maximum Modulus Principle (Theorem 3.4.2) implies that is constant and subsequently identically zero. If attains its maximum on , the conclusion follows trivially.
Hence we may assume that such that . Without loss of generality, we assume (generality by applying a rotation). Then the Möbius transform (in the inverse form of Example 5.1.7) maps bijectively to a connected segment . Then the function maps to and is continuous on and holomorphic on . Let define the upper half-disk with diameter . By the Schwarz Reflection Principle (Theorem 5.5.2), may be analytically continued to a function on . Since the zero set has an accumulation point in , the Identity Theorem (Theorem 3.3.3) implies that vanishes on all of , or equivalently, that vanishes on .
Lemma 9.3.12.
The extension of the biholomorphism to is injective.Proof.
Notice that , and from the earlier discussion regarding properness, . By the biholomorphy on , it thus suffices to show that is one-to-one, or that for any two points such that , . Assume, for the sake of contradiction, that . The straight line segment connecting to (denoted ), and the straight line segment joining and (denoted ) then split into two domains and , and forms a Jordan curve enclosing some region . See Figure 9.9. By connectivity, either or maps to . Without loss of generality, assume . Since is continuous on , it follows that
Then the arc of in maps to a constant, which by Proposition 9.3.11, implies that is constant, which is an impossibility. (The same argument is used for )
Therefore, by the induced contradiction, we must have , which implies the injectivity of .
Thus, the preceding results gives the construction of an injective, continuous extension of to . Moreover, the extension is onto since a continuous function maps compact sets to compact sets.
Next, we show that the extension is a homeomorphism.
Proposition 9.3.13.
The extension of the biholomorphism to is a homeomorphism.Proof.
It suffices to show that the restriction is a homeomorphism between and . Since is compact (and one under the subspace topology, a compact space) and is trivially Hausdorff (under the subspace topology), the continuity and injectivity of suffices to show that it is a homeomorphism (by Theorem 3.2.1.16). Proof (Alternate).
We show that the inverse of is continuous, which also suffices to show that is a homeomorphism.
By the final argument of the proof of Corollary 9.3.10.1, it suffices to show that any sequence that converges to a point has a corresponding sequence in which converges to . Assume, for contradiction, that some sequence as labeled above does not converge to . By the Bolzano–Weierstrass Theorem (Theorem 1.1.10), some subsequence of , denoted by , converges to (which is not equal to ). Then as by the continuity of . However, each . Hence, which by injectivity, implies , which is a contradiction. Thus establishes a homeomorphism between and .
Now consider the general case for arbitrary as in the theorem statement. Let be a biholomorphism.
By the Riemann Mapping Theorem (Theorem 5.3.2), there exist biholomorphisms and , which extend homeomorphically to and , respectively, by the preceding results.
Thus, , which by Theorem 3.5.3, is the composition of a Möbius transformation and a rotation, which extends homeomorphically to some function on . Thus, we define to be the composition of three continuous functions, defining a continuous extension of , completing the proof.
The second case pertaining to boundaries will be proved later. We now entertain the third.
Theorem 9.3.14.
Let and be two regions in each bounded by a single real-analytic Jordan curve. Then a biholomorphism can be analytically continued to a neighborhood of .Proof.
By the Osgood–Taylor–Carathéodory Theorem (Theorem 9.3.3), extends continuously to with ; retain the name for this extension.
Fix and set . Since is real-analytic, the function defined by a locally injective power series on a subset of the real axis extends (by power series) to a biholomorphism from a region onto a neighborhood , with and (existence by real-analyticity and biholomorphy by Theorem 5.1.3). Set .
Since is continuous at and , the set is an open neighborhood of . Since is real-analytic, choose a biholomorphism from a region onto a neighborhood contained in , with and . Set . Denote by the component of whose image under is . See Figure 9.10.
By construction , so the composition is defined on
On
Since
Thus
an open neighborhood of
Setting
(the
is holomorphic and agrees with
The main observation here is that each composition will map open sets to open sets and vice versa (although we are being a bit pedantic).
Applying this construction at every
The collection of all
For two sets
The local extensions are therefore mutually consistent and, together with