Densities of the Raney distributions (Q2439223)

The authors consider the sequence \(\bigl(\begin{smallmatrix} mp+r&\\ m& \end{smallmatrix}\big)\frac{r}{mp+r}\), \(m\geq1\), where \(p\geq1\) and \(0<r\leq p\), consisting of so-called the Raney numbers, and show that this is the moment sequence of a probability measure, say \(\mu(p,r)\), with compact support contained in \([0,+\infty)\). In fact, this is a family of measures including the multiplicative free powers of the Marchenko-Pastur distribution and the Wigner's semicircle distribution centered at \(x=2\) as well. The authors show that if \(p>1\) is rational, then \(\mu(p,r)\) is absolutely continuous. Moreover, its density, say \(W_{p,r}(x)\), can be expressed in terms of the generalized hypergeometric functions. In some particular cases, \(W_{p,r}(x)\) is actually an elementary function.