Lecture 19: Normal Families — Montel's Theorem #
This file formalizes Theorem 1 from Lecture 19, which is Montel's theorem on normal families:
Let Ω ⊂ ℂ be a region, F a family of holomorphic functions on Ω such that for each compact E ⊂ Ω, F is uniformly bounded on E. Then F has a subsequence converging uniformly on each compact subset of Ω.
The proof follows the textbook argument:
- Cauchy estimates give a Lipschitz bound for holomorphic functions on balls, which implies equicontinuity of the family on compact subsets.
- A diagonal argument (Bolzano–Weierstrass on a countable dense set) extracts a subsequence converging pointwise on a dense subset of Ω.
- The equicontinuity upgrades pointwise convergence on a dense set to uniform convergence on every compact subset of Ω (the "3ε argument").
- The limit function is holomorphic by
TendstoLocallyUniformlyOn.differentiableOn.
Step 1: Lipschitz bound from Schwarz estimates #
For z ∈ K and w ∈ ball(z, δ), we have w ∈ cthickening δ K.
Holomorphic functions bounded on a ball satisfy a Lipschitz-type estimate on the quarter-ball. For z₁, z₂ ∈ ball(c, R/4), dist(f z₂, f z₁) ≤ (4M/R) · dist(z₂, z₁).
Step 2: Diagonal extraction #
Diagonal extraction lemma. Given a doubly-indexed sequence x n k in ℂ that is bounded
in the first index for each fixed second index, there exists a strictly increasing subsequence
φ such that x (φ n) k converges for every k.
Step 3: Main theorem #
Montel's theorem (Theorem 1, Lecture 19).
Let Ω ⊆ ℂ be open, and let (fₙ) be a sequence of holomorphic functions on Ω that
is locally uniformly bounded: for every compact K ⊆ Ω there exists M such that
‖fₙ(z)‖ ≤ M for all n and z ∈ K.
Then there exist a subsequence φ and a holomorphic function g on Ω such that
f ∘ φ converges to g locally uniformly on Ω.