A characterization of Leonard pairs using the notion of a tail (Q636261): Difference between revisions

Let \(V\) denote a vector space with finite positive dimension. We consider an ordered pair of linear transformations \(A:V\rightarrow V\) and \(A^{\ast }:V\rightarrow V\) that satisfy (i) and (ii) below: (i) There exists a basis for \(V\) with respect to which the matrix representing \(A\) is irreducible tridiagonal and the matrix representing \( A^{\ast }\) is diagonal. (ii) There exists a basis for \(V\) with respect to which the matrix representing \(A^{\ast }\) is irreducible tridiagonal and the matrix representing \(A\) is diagonal. We call such a pair a Leonard pair on \(V\). Let \(K\) be a field and \(\text{End}\left( V\right) \) denote the \(K\)-algebra consisting of all linear transformations from \(V\) to \(V\), i.e., \(\mathcal{A}=\text{End}\left( V\right) \). Let \(\left\{ E_{i}^{\ast }\right\} _{i=0}^{d}\) denote a system of mutually orthogonal idempotents in \(\mathcal{A}\). Let \(A\) denote an element of \(\mathcal{A}\) such that \[ E_{i}^{\ast }AE_{j}^{\ast } = \begin{cases} 0 &\text{if }| i-j| >1 \\ \not=0 &\text{if }| i-j =1 \end{cases} \quad(0\leq i,j \leq d) \] Furthermore, assume that \(A\) is multiplicity free, with primitive idempotents \(\left\{ E_{i}\right\} _{i=0}^{d}\) and eigenvalues \(\left\{ \theta _{i}\right\} _{i=0}^{d}\). Additionally, let \(\left\{ \theta _{i}^{\ast }\right\} _{i=0}^{d}\) denotes scalars in \(K\) and let \(A^{\ast }=\sum\limits_{i=0}^{d}\theta _{i}^{\ast }E_{i}^{\ast }\). The main result of the paper is the following : Let \(\left( E,F\right) \) denote an ordered pair of distinct primitive idempotents for \(A\). Then this pair is \(Q\)-polynomial if and only if the folllowing (i)-(iii) hold: {\parindent=7mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)]\(\left( E,F\right) \) is a tail, \item[(ii)]there exists \(\beta \in K\) such that \(\theta _{i-1}^{\ast }-\beta \theta _{i}^{\ast }+\theta _{i+1}^{\ast }\) is indepedent of \(i\) for \(1\leq i\leq d-1\), \item[(iii)]\(\theta _{0}^{\ast }\neq \theta _{i}^{\ast }\) for \(1\leq i\leq d\). \end{itemize}} In that way the author succeeds to characterize Leonard pairs in a purely algebraic way by making no reference to distant regular graphs.