Relative asymptotics for orthogonal polynomials with unbounded recurrence coefficients (Q917839)

In this interesting paper, the authors give asymptotics as \(n\to \infty\) for the ratio \(p_ n(z)/q_ n(z)\), where \(\{p_ n\}_ 0^{\infty}\) and \(\{q_ n\}_ 0^{\infty}\) are systems of orthogonal polynomials whose recurrence coefficients are closely related. To be more precise, let \(\alpha >0\) and \(c_ n=n^{\alpha}L(n)\), \(n\geq 1\), where L: \([0,\infty)\to [0,\infty)\) is slowly varying, that is \(\lim_{x\to \infty}L(xt)/L(x)=1,\forall t>0\). Let the recurrence equations for \(\{p_ n\}_ 0^{\infty}\) and \(\{q_ n\}_ 0^{\infty}\) be \[ xp_ n(x)=a_{n+1}p_{n+1}(x)+b_ np_ n(x)+a_ np_{n-1}(x),\quad n\geq 1, \] \[ xq_ n(x)=a^ 0_{n+1}q_{n+1}(x)+b^ 0_ nq_ n(x)+a^ 0_ nq_{n-1}(x),\quad n\geq 1. \] Assume further that \(\lim_{n\to \infty}a^ 0_ n/c_ n=a\) and \(\lim_{n\to \infty}b^ 0_ n/c_ n=b,\) and \(\lim_{n\to \infty}n(a^ 0_ n-a_ n)/c_ n=A;\lim_{n\to \infty}n(b^ 0_ n-b_ n)/c_ n=B.\) Typically, \(\{q_ n\}_ 0^{\infty}\) is a system for which the asymptotics are known, and \(\{p_ n\}_ 0^{\infty}\) is a system for which the asymptotics are required. Let \(\hat p_ n(x):=p_ n(x)\prod^{n}_{j=1}(a_ j/a^ 0_ j),\) \(n\geq 1\). The authors show that \(\lim_{n\to \infty}\hat p_ n(c_ nz)/q_ n(c_ nz)=H(z),\) uniformly in compact subsets of \({\mathbb{C}}\setminus [D,E]\), where the function H and interval [D,E] are explicitly given. They apply their results to Laguerre and Meixner polynomials.