Embeddings through discrete sets of balls

Abstract

We investigate whether a Stein manifold M which allows proper holomorphic embedding into ℂⁿ can be embedded in such a way that the image contains a given discrete set of points and in addition follow arbitrarily close to prescribed tangent directions in a neighbourhood of the discrete set. The infinitesimal version was proven by Forstnerič to be always possible. We give a general positive answer if the dimension of M is smaller than n/2 and construct counterexamples for all other dimensional relations. The obstruction we use in these examples is a certain hyperbolicity condition.