proof of maximal modulus principle
is holomorphic and therefore continuous, so will also be continuous on . is compact
and since is continuous on it must attain a maximum and a minimum value there.
Suppose the maximum of is attained at in the interior of .
By definition there will exist such that the set .
Consider the boundary of the previous set parameterized counter-clockwise.Since is holomorphic by hypothesis, Cauchy integral formula
says that
(1) |
A canonical parameterization of is , for .
(2) |
Taking modulus on both sides and using the estimating theorem of contour integral
Since is a maximum, the last inequality must be verified by having the equality in the verified.
The proof of the estimating theorem of contour integral (http://planetmath.org/ProofOfEstimatingTheoremOfContourIntegral) implies that equality is only verified when
where is a constant.Therefore, is constant and to verify equation 2 its value must be .
So is holomorphic and constant on a circumference.It’s a well known result that if 2 holomorphic functions are equal on a curve, then they are equal on their entire domain, so is constant.
to see this in this particular circumstance is using equation 1 to calculate the value of on a point interior different than . Bearing in mind that is constant in the formula reads . So is really constant in the interior of and the only holomorphic function defined in that is constant in the interior of is the constant function on all .
Thus if the maximum of is attained in the interior of , then is constant.If isn’t constant, the maximum must be attained somewhere in , but not in its interior.Since is compact, by definition it must be attained at .