Generalized Jacobi weights, Christoffel functions, and zeros of orthogonal polynomials (Q1190992)

A generalized Jacobi weight is of the form \(w(z)=|\omega|\prod^ k_{j=1}| z-z_ j|^{r_ j}\), where \(\omega\neq 0\), \(z,z_ j\in\mathbb{C}\), \(r_ j>0\) and \(N=\sum^ k_{j=1}r_ j\) is then called the degree of this weight function. Upper and lower bounds are obtained for the Christoffel function \[ \lambda_ n(\alpha,p,z)=\min_ q\int{| q(t)|^ p\over| q(z)|^ p}d\alpha(t) \] (the minimum is taken over all polynomials of degree \(\leq n-1)\) and the generalized Christoffel function \[ \lambda^*_ n(\alpha,p,z)=\inf_ f\int{f^ p(t)\over f^ p(z)}d\alpha(t) \] (the infimum is taken over all generalized Jacobi weights of degree \(\leq n-1)\). The novelty of the results lies in the fact that the bounds depend only on the degree of the weight functions and not on the weights themselves. These results are then used to obtain sharp lower and upper bounds for the distance of consecutive zeros of orthogonal polynomials associated with generalized Jacobi weight functions.