We present a complete characterisation of the radial asymptotics of degree-one Mahler functions as $z$ approaches roots of unity of degree $k^{n}$, where $k$ is the base of the Mahler function, as well as some applications concerning transcendence and algebraic independence. For example, we show that the generating function of the Thue–Morse sequence and any Mahler function (to the same base) which has a nonzero Mahler eigenvalue are algebraically independent over $\mathbb{C}(z)$. Finally, we discuss asymptotic bounds towards generic points on the unit circle.

In this short note, considering functions, we show that taking an asymptotic viewpoint allows one to prove strong transcendence statements in many general situations. In particular, as a consequence of a more general result, we show that if $F(z)\in \mathbb{C}[[z]]$ is a power series with coefficients from a finite set, then $F(z)$ is either rational or it is transcendental over the field of meromorphic functions.

We study transcendence properties of certain infinite products of cyclotomic polynomials. In particular, we determine all cases in which the product is hypertranscendental. We then use various results from Mahler’s transcendence method to obtain algebraic independence results on such functions and their values.

We prove that if $y''=f(y,y',t,\alpha ,\beta ,\ldots)$ is a generic Painlevé equation from among the classes II, IV and V, and if $y_1,\ldots,y_n$ are distinct solutions, then $\mathrm{tr.deg}(\mathbb{C}(t)(y_1,y'_1,\ldots,y_n,y'_n)/\mathbb{C}(t))=2n$. (This was proved by Nishioka for the single equation $P_{{\rm I}}$.) For generic Painlevé III and VI, we have a slightly weaker result: $\omega $-categoricity (in the sense of model theory) of the solution space, as described below. The results confirm old beliefs about the Painlevé transcendents.