We give a detailed proof of Siu’s theorem on extendibility of holomorphic vector bundles of rank larger than one, and prove a corresponding extension theorem for holomorphic sprays. We apply this result to study ellipticity properties of complements of compact subsets in Stein manifolds. In particular we show that the complement of a closed ball in $\mathbb{C}^{n}, n \geq3$ , is not subelliptic.

Let$f$be a germ of an analytic function at infinity that can be analytically continued along any path in the complex plane deprived of a finite set of points, $${f \in \mathcal{A}(\bar{\mathbb{C}} \setminus A)}$$ , $${\# A< \infty}$$ . J. Nuttall has put forward the important relation between the$maximal domain$of$f$where the function has a single-valued branch and the$domain of convergence$of the diagonal Padé approximants for$f$. The Padé approximants, which are rational functions and thus single-valued, approximate a holomorphic branch of$f$in the domain of their convergence. At the same time most of their poles tend to the boundary of the domain of convergence and the support of their limiting distribution models the system of cuts that makes the function$f$single-valued. Nuttall has conjectured (and proved for many important special cases) that this system of cuts has$minimal logarithmic capacity$among all other systems converting the function$f$to a single-valued branch. Thus the domain of convergence corresponds to the$maximal$(in the sense of$minimal$boundary) domain of single-valued holomorphy for the analytic function $${f\in\mathcal{A}(\bar{\mathbb{C}} \setminus A)}$$ . The complete proof of Nuttall’s conjecture (even in a more general setting where the set$A$has logarithmic capacity 0) was obtained by H. Stahl. In this work, we derive$strong asymptotics$for the denominators of the diagonal Padé approximants for this problem in a rather general setting. We assume that$A$is a finite set of branch points of$f$which have the$algebro-logarithmic character$and which are placed in a$generic position$. The last restriction means that we exclude from our consideration some degenerated “constellations” of the branch points.

We prove the complete monotonicity on $${(0, \infty)^{n}}$$ for suitable inverse powers of the spanning-tree polynomials of graphs and, more generally, of the basis generating polynomials of certain classes of matroids. This generalizes a result of Szegő and answers, among other things, a long-standing question of Lewy and Askey concerning the positivity of Taylor coefficients for certain rational functions. Our proofs are based on two ab-initio methods for proving that $${P^{-\beta}}$$ is completely monotone on a convex cone$C$: the determinantal method and the quadratic-form method. These methods are closely connected with harmonic analysis on Euclidean Jordan algebras (or equivalently on symmetric cones). We furthermore have a variety of constructions that, given such polynomials, can create other ones with the same property: among these are algebraic analogues of the matroid operations of deletion, contraction, direct sum, parallel connection, series connection and 2-sum. The complete monotonicity of $${P^{-\beta}}$$ for some $${\beta > 0}$$ can be viewed as a strong quantitative version of the half-plane property (Hurwitz stability) for$P$, and is also related to the Rayleigh property for matroids.