On meromorphic extendibility

Let D be a bounded domain in the complex plane whose boundary consists of finitely many pairwise disjoint real-analytic simple closed curves. Let f be an integrable function on bD. In the paper we show how to compute the candidates for poles of a meromorphic extension of f through D and thus reduce the question of meromorphic extendibility to the question of holomorphic extendibility. Let A(D) be the algebra of all continuous functions on which are holomorphic on D. We prove that a continuous function f on bD extends meromorphically through D if and only if there is an N∈N∪{0} such that the change of argument of Pf+Q along bD is bounded below by −2πN for all P,Q∈A(D) such that Pf+Q≠0 on bD. If this is the case then the meromorphic extension of f has at most N poles in D, counting multiplicity.