Tight approximation for rationally simply connected varieties

Abstract

We prove that holomorphic maps from an open subset of a complex smooth projective curve to a complex smooth projective rationally simply connected variety can be approximated by algebraic maps for the compact-open topology. This theorem can be applied in particular when the target is a smooth hypersurface of degree d in P^n with n greater than or equal to d^2-1. We deduce it from a more general result: the tight approximation property holds for rationally simply connected varieties over function fields of complex curves.