The Cauchy integral and analytic continuation

Abstract

One of the most important concepts in the theory of approximation by analytic functions is that of analytic continuation. In a typical problem, for example, there is generally a region Ω, a Banach space B of functions analytic in Ω and a subfamily ℱ ⊂ B, each member of which is analytic in some larger open set, and one might be asked to decide whether or not ℱ is dense in B. It often happens, however, that either ℱ is dense or the only functions which can be so approximated have a natural analytic continuation across ∂Ω. A similar phenomenon is also known to occur even for approximation on sets without interior. In this article we shall describe a method for proving such theorems which can be applied in a variety of settings and, in particular, to: (1)  the Bernštein problem for weighted polynomial approximation on the real line; (2)  the completeness problem for weighted polynomial approximation on bounded simply connected regions; (3) the Shapiro overconvergence problem for sequences of rational functions with sparse poles; (4) the Akutowicz-Carleson minimum problem for interpolating functions. Although we shall present no new results, the method of proof, which is based on an argument of the author [6], seems sufficiently versatile to warrant exposition.