Maximum modulus principle

A plot of the modulus of (in red) for in the unit disk centered at the origin (shown in blue). As predicted by the theorem, the maximum of the modulus cannot be inside of the disk (so the highest value on the red surface is somewhere along its edge).

In mathematics, the maximum modulus principle in complex analysis states that if is a holomorphic function, then the modulus cannot exhibit a strict maximum that is strictly within the domain of .

In other words, either is locally a constant function, or, for any point inside the domain of there exist other points arbitrarily close to at which takes larger values.