Zeros of orthogonal polynomials on the real line (Q1873787)

Let \(p_{n}(x)\) be the orthonormal polynomials associated to a measure \(d\mu\) of compact support \(\text{supp}(d\mu)\) in \(\mathbb R\). Assume that \(\text{supp}(d\mu)\) is not a finite number of points and \(\int |x |^{n} d\mu(x) < \infty\) for all \(n=0,1,2,\ldots\;\). Let the sequence \(\{p_{n}(x)\}\) satisfy the three-term recurrence relation \[ xp_{n}(x)=a_{n+1}p_{n+1}(x)+b_{n+1}p_{n}(x)+a_{n}p_{n}(x) , \] where \(a_{n}>0\), \(b_{n}\in \mathbb R\) and let \(N_{n}(x_{0},\delta)\) denote the number of zeros of \(p_{n}(x)\) in \((x_{0}-\delta,x_{0}+\delta)\). Then the authors prove the following theorems: 1. Let \(d=\text{dist}(x_{0},\text{supp}(d\mu))>0\). Let \(\delta_{n}=d^{2}/(d+\sqrt{2} a_{n+1})\). Then either \(p_{n}\) or \(p_{n+1}\) (or both) has no zeros in \((x_{0}-\delta_{n},x_{0}+\delta_{n})\). In particular, if \(a_{\infty}=\sup_{n} a_{n}< \infty\) and \(\delta_{\infty}=d^{2}/(d+\sqrt{2} a_{\infty})\), then \((x_{0}-\delta_{\infty},x_{0}+\delta_{\infty})\) does not have zeros of \(p_{j}\) for two successive values of \(j\). 2. Let \(x_{0}\) be an isolated point of \(\text{supp}(d\mu)\). Then there exists a \(d_{0}>0\), so that if \(\delta_{n}=d^{2}_{0}/(d_{0}+\sqrt{2} a_{n+1})\), then at least one of \(p_{n}\) and \(p_{n+1}\) has no zeros or one zero in \((x_{0}-\delta_{n},x_{0}+\delta_{n})\). In particular, if \(a_{\infty}=\sup_{n} a_{n}< \infty\) and \(\delta_{\infty}=d^{2}_{0}/(d_{0}+\sqrt{2} a_{\infty})\), then for all large \(n\), either \(N_{n}(x_{0},\delta_{\infty})=1\) or \(N_{n+1}(x_{0},\delta_{\infty})=1\). The authors also give an example of a set of polynomials whose zeros are dense in a gap of \(\text{supp}(d\mu)\).