The Siciak-Zahariuta extremal function as the envelope of disc functionals

Abstract

We establish disc formulas for the Siciak-Zahariuta extremal function of an arbitrary open subset of complex affine space, generalizing Lempert's formula for the convex case. This function is also known as the pluricomplex Green function with logarithmic growth or a logarithmic pole at infinity. We extend Lempert's formula for this function from the convex case to the connected case.