Löwner chains and a subclass of biholomorphic mappings ✩

In this paper, we give characterization of almost starlike functions of order α (respectively almost starlike mappings of order α) on the unit disc in C (respectively the unit ball in a finite-dimensional complex Banach space) in terms of Löwner chains. Furthermore, using the properties of Löwner chains, we can easily prove that two classes of generalized Roper–Suffridge extension operators preserve almost starlikeness of order α on two important classes of Reinhardt domains in Cn, respectively. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.