Every holomorphic function on a compact subset of a Riemann surface can be uniformly approximated by partial sums of a given series of functions. Those functions behave locally like the classical fundamental solutions of the Cauchy-Riemann operator in the plane.

Given a homogeneous elliptic partial differential operator $L$ with constant complex coefficients and a class of functions (jet-distributions) which are defined on a (relatively) closed subset of a domain $\Omega$ in $\mathbf{R}^n$ and which belong locally to a Banach space $V$, we consider the problem of approximating in the norm of $V$ the functions in this class by ``analytic'' and ``meromorphic'' solutions of the equation $Lu=0$. We establish new Roth, Arakelyan (including tangential) and Carleman type theorems for a large class of Banach spaces $V$ and operators $L$. Important applications to boundary value problems of solutions of homogeneous elliptic partial differential equations are obtained, including the solution of a generalized Dirichlet problem.

We show that if $m$, $n\geq 0$, $\lambda >1$, and $R$ is a rational function with numerator, denominator of degree $\leq m$, $n$, respectively, then there exists a set $\mathcal{S}\subset [0,1] $ of linear measure $\geq \frac{1}{4}\exp (-\frac{13}{\log \lambda })$ such that for $r\in \mathcal{S}$, \[ \max_{|z| =r}| R(z)| / \min_{|z| =r} | R(z) |\leq \lambda ^{m+n}. \] Here, one may not replace $\frac{1}{4}\exp ( -\frac{13}{\log \lambda })$ by $\exp (-\frac{2-\varepsilon }{\log \lambda })$, for any $\varepsilon >0$. As our motivating application, we prove a convergence result for diagonal Pad\'{e} approximants for functions meromorphic in the unit ball.

We construct meromorphic functions with asymptotic power series expansion in $z^{-1}$ at $\infty$ on an Arakelyan set $A$ having prescribed zeros and poles outside $A$. We use our results to prove approximation theorems where the approximating function fulfills interpolation restrictions outside the set of approximation.