On a conjecture concerning monotonocity of zeros of ultraspherical polynomials (Q1914797)

Let \(C^\lambda_n\), \(n=0,1,\dots\), \(\lambda>-1/2\), be the ultraspheric (Gegenbauer) polynomials, and let \(z_{n,k}(\lambda)\), \(k=1,2,\dots,[n/2]\) their positive zeros. The problem of finding functions \(f\) for which \(f(\lambda)z_{n,k}(\lambda)\) increases with \(\lambda\) is of recent interest both from mathematical and physical point of view. \textit{M. E. H. Ismail} [\(q\)-series and partitions, Proc. Workshop, Minneapolis/MN (USA) 1988, IMA Vol. Math. Appl. 18, 177-190 (1989; Zbl 0698.33008)], J. Letessier, and R. Askey conjectured that \(f(\lambda)= (\lambda+1)^{1/2}\) is the extremal function (minimizing \(f'(\lambda)/f(\lambda)\)) to solve the problem. The author proves the conjecture for sufficiently large \(n\) together with some related results on ``birth-and-death-process polynomials'', defined by three-term-relations with positive (birth) and negative (death) coefficients, see e.g. \textit{S. Karlin} and \textit{J. L. McGregor} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 85, 489-546 (1957; Zbl 0091.13801)].