Steven Delvaux

We study nonintersecting Brownian motions with two prescribed starting and ending positions, in the neighborhood of a tacnode in the time–space plane. Several expressions have been obtained for the critical correlation kernel that describes the microscopic behavior of the Brownian motions near the tacnode. One approach, due to Kuijlaars, Zhang, and the author, expresses the kernel via a $$4\times 4$$ matrix-valued Riemann–Hilbert problem (RH problem). Another approach, due to Adler, Ferrari, Johansson, van Moerbeke, and Vetö, expresses the kernel via resolvents and Fredholm determinants of the Airy integral operator. In this paper, we prove the equivalence of both approaches. We also obtain a rank-2 property for the derivative of the tacnode kernel. Finally, we find an RH expression for the multitime extended tacnode kernel.

A system of non-intersecting squared Bessel processes is considered which all start from one point and they all return to another point. Under the scaling of the starting and ending points when the macroscopic boundary of the paths touches the hard edge, a limiting critical process is described in the neighbourhood of the touching point which we call the hard edge tacnode process. We derive its correlation kernel in an explicit new form which involves Airy type functions and operators that act on the direct sum of $L^2(\mathbb R_+)$ and a finite dimensional space. As the starting points of the squared Bessel paths are set to 0, a cusp in the boundary appears. The limiting process is described near the cusp and it is called the hard edge Pearcey process. We compute its multi-time correlation kernel which extends the existing formulas for the single-time kernel. Our pre-asymptotic correlation kernel involves the ratio of two Toeplitz determinants which are rewritten using a Borodin-Okounkov type formula.

The squared Bessel process is a 1-dimensional diffusion process related to the squared norm of a higher dimensional Brownian motion. We study a model of $n$ non-intersecting squared Bessel paths, with all paths starting at the same point $a>0$ at time $t=0$ and ending at the same point $b>0$ at time $t=1$. Our interest lies in the critical regime $ab=1/4$, for which the paths are tangent to the hard edge at the origin at a critical time $t^*\in (0,1)$. The critical behavior of the paths for $n\to\infty$ is studied in a scaling limit with time $t=t^*+O(n^{-1/3})$ and temperature $T=1+O(n^{-2/3})$. This leads to a critical correlation kernel that is defined via a new Riemann-Hilbert problem of size $4\times 4$. The Riemann-Hilbert problem gives rise to a new Lax pair representation for the Hastings-McLeod solution to the inhomogeneous Painlev\'e II equation $q"(x) = xq(x)+2q^3(x)-\nu,$ where $\nu=\alpha+1/2$ with $\alpha>-1$ the parameter of the squared Bessel process. These results extend our recent work with Kuijlaars and Zhang \cite{DKZ} for the homogeneous case $\nu = 0$.

We study nonintersecting Brownian motions with two prescribed starting and ending positions, in the neighborhood of a tacnode in the time-space plane. Several expressions have been obtained in the literature for the critical correlation kernel $K\tac(x,y)$ that describes the microscopic behavior of the Brownian motions near the tacnode. One approach, due to Kuijlaars, Zhang and the author, expresses the kernel (in the single time case) in terms of a $4\times 4$ matrix valued Riemann-Hilbert problem. Another approach, due to Adler, Ferrari, Johansson, van Moerbeke and Vet\H o in a series of papers, expresses the kernel in terms of resolvents and Fredholm determinants of the Airy integral operator acting on a semi-infinite interval $[\sigma,\infty)$, involving some objects introduced by Tracy and Widom. In this paper we prove the equivalence of both approaches. We also obtain a rank-2 property for the derivative of the tacnode kernel. Finally, we find a Riemann-Hilbert expression for the multi-time extended tacnode kernel.

Ratio asymptotics for matrix orthogonal polynomials with recurrence coefficients $A_n$ and $B_n$ having limits $A$ and $B$ respectively (the matrix Nevai class) were obtained by Dur\'an. In the present paper we obtain an alternative description of the limiting ratio. We generalize it to recurrence coefficients which are asymptotically periodic with higher periodicity, and/or which are slowly varying in function of a parameter. Under such assumptions, we also find the limiting zero distribution of the matrix orthogonal polynomials, generalizing results by Dur\'an-L\'opez-Saff and Dette-Reuther to the non-Hermitian case. Our proofs are based on "normal family" arguments and on the solution to a quadratic eigenvalue problem. As an application of our results we obtain new explicit formulas for the spectral measures of the matrix Chebyshev polynomials of the first and second kind, and we derive the asymptotic eigenvalue distribution for a class of random band matrices generalizing the tridiagonal matrices introduced by Dumitriu-Edelman.

We consider banded block Toeplitz matrices $T_n$ with $n$ block rows and columns. We show that under certain technical assumptions, the normalized eigenvalue counting measure of $T_n$ for $n\to\infty$ weakly converges to one component of the unique vector of measures that minimizes a certain energy functional. In this way we generalize a recent result of Duits and Kuijlaars for the scalar case. Along the way we also obtain an equilibrium problem associated to an arbitrary algebraic curve, not necessarily related to a block Toeplitz matrix. For banded block Toeplitz matrices, there are several new phenomena that do not occur in the scalar case: (i) The total masses of the equilibrium measures do not necessarily form a simple arithmetic series but in general are obtained through a combinatorial rule; (ii) The limiting eigenvalue distribution may contain point masses, and there may be attracting point sources in the equilibrium problem; (iii) More seriously, there are examples where the connection between the limiting eigenvalue distribution of $T_n$ and the solution to the equilibrium problem breaks down. We provide sufficient conditions guaranteeing that no such breakdown occurs; in particular we show this if $T_n$ is a Hessenberg matrix.

Let there be given a probability measure $\mu$ on the unit circle $\TT$ of the complex plane and consider the inner product induced by $\mu$. In this paper we consider the problem of orthogonalizing a sequence of monomials $\{z^{r_k}\}_k$, for a certain order of the $r_k\in\mathbb{Z}$, by means of the Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization process. This leads to a basis of orthonormal Laurent polynomials $\{\psi_k\}_k$. We show that the matrix representation with respect to the basis $\{\psi_k\}_k$ of the operator of multiplication by $z$ is an infinite unitary or isometric matrix allowing a 'snake-shaped' matrix factorization. Here the 'snake shape' of the factorization is to be understood in terms of its graphical representation via sequences of little line segments, following an earlier work of Delvaux and Van Barel. We show that the shape of the snake is determined by the order in which the monomials $\{z^{r_k}\}_k$ are orthogonalized, while the 'segments' of the snake are canonically determined in terms of the Schur parameters for $\mu$. Isometric Hessenberg matrices and unitary five-diagonal matrices (CMV matrices) follow as a special case of the presented formalism.