Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 1997
We prove a complex analytic analogue of the classical Rolle theorem asserting that the number of zeros of a real smooth function can exceed that of its derivative by at most 1. This result is used then to obtain upper bounds for the number of complex isolated zeros of:
(1) functions defined by linear ordinary differential equations (in terms of the magnitude of the coefficients of the equations);
(2) elements from the polynomial envelope of a linear differential equation with an irreducible monodromy group (in terms of the degree of the envelope);
(3) successive derivatives of a function defined by a linear irreducible equation (in terms of the order of the derivative).
These results generalize the bounds from [2, 5, 6] that were previously obtained for the number of real isolated zeros.