Sunday 21 September 2014

general topology - complement of zero set of holomorphic function is connected



I'm stuck with the following part of exercise 1.1.8 in Hubrechts book Complex geometry:



Prove that, if $U \subset \mathbb C^n$ is open connected, then $U \setminus Z(f)$, the complement of zero set of a non trivial holomorphic function $f:U\to \mathbb C$, is connected.




I know I could use Riemann extension theorem, but I'm messing things with this point: suppose $U \setminus Z = A \cup B$ with $A$ and $B$ open non-empty disjoint; how do I see that there's point $x \in \overline A \cap \overline B \cap Z$?


Answer



Suppose $\overline{A}\cap\overline{B}\cap Z = \varnothing$. Since $A$ and $B$ are open (in $U$, or equivalently in $\mathbb{C}^n$), we have



$$\overline{A}\cap B = \varnothing = A\cap\overline{B},$$



and thus $\overline{A}\cap \overline{B} \subset Z$. The supposition thus implies that $\overline{A}$ and $\overline{B}$ are disjoint, and thus



$$\varnothing = \overset{\Large\circ}{Z} = U\setminus \overline{U\setminus Z} = U\setminus \overline{A\cup B} = U\setminus (\overline{A}\cup \overline{B}),$$




which means that $U$ is the disjoint union of the nonempty closed sets $\overline{A}$ and $\overline{B}$, and therefore $U$ is not connected. This contradicts the premise that $U$ is connected, hence the supposition $\overline{A}\cap\overline{B}\cap Z = \varnothing$ must have been wrong.



So the conclusion that $\overline{A}\cap\overline{B}\cap Z \neq \varnothing$ follows if $Z$ is any nowhere dense closed subset of $U$. Since there are nowhere dense closed sets $F\subset U$ such that $U\setminus F$ is not connected, you need special properties of the zero sets of holomorphic functions to conclude that $U\setminus Z$ must be connected. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another way than the Riemann extension theorem.


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