English

Entire Functions Mapping Countable Dense Subsets of $\mathbb{R}$ onto Countable Dense Subsets of $\mathbb{C}$

Complex Variables 2026-07-27 v1

Abstract

In 1977, Karl F. Barth posed the following problem: given countable dense sets ARA\subset\mathbb{R} and BCB\subset\mathbb{C}, does there exist a transcendental entire function ff such that f(A)=Bf(A)=B and f(RA)CBf(\mathbb{R}\setminus A)\subset\mathbb{C}\setminus B? We review results related to this question and prove that there exist transcendental entire functions ff such that fA ⁣:ABf\restriction_A\colon A\to B is bijective, f1(B)R=Af^{-1}(B)\cap\mathbb{R}=A, and f(a)0f'(a)\neq0 for every aAa\in A. In fact, the set of such functions has the cardinality of the continuum. At the end, we give two extensions of the result, one for countably many pairwise disjoint pairs of dense sets and one with R\mathbb{R} replaced by a closed unbounded subset of C\mathbb{C} of planar Lebesgue measure zero.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.23966,
  title  = {Entire Functions Mapping Countable Dense Subsets of $\mathbb{R}$ onto Countable Dense Subsets of $\mathbb{C}$},
  author = {Sina Nadi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.23966},
  year   = {2026}
}

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12 pages