Asymptotics for Hermite-Pade rational approximants for two analytic functions with separated pairs of branch points (case of genus 0)

We investigate the asymptotic behavior for type II Hermite-Pade approximation to two functions, where each function has two branch points and the pairs of branch points are separated. We give a classification of the cases such that the limiting counting measures for the poles of the Hermite-Pade approximants are described by an algebraic function of order 3 and genus 0. This situation gives rise to a vector-potential equilibrium problem for three measures and the poles of the common denominator are asymptotically distributed like one of these measures. We also work out the strong asymptotics for the corresponding Hermite-Pade approximants by using a 3x3 Riemann-Hilbert problem that characterizes this Hermite-Pade approximation problem.