The Christoffel function for the Hermite weight is bell-shaped. (Q1418954)

Let be \(w_H(x)=\exp (-x^2)\) the Hermite weight function associated to the Hermite polynomials \(H_n(x)\) and consider the Christoffel function \(\lambda _n(w_H; x)\) defined by \[ \lambda _n(w_H; x)=\frac {\pi ^{1/2}2^n(n-1)!}{H_n^\prime(x)H_{n-1}(x)-H_n(x)H_{n-1}^\prime (x)}. \] The main result of the paper shows that this function is bell-shaped. The elegant proof makes use only of elementary properties of the Hermite polynomials. As a consequence,the arrangement in magnitude of the weights in a Gauss-type quadrature formula associated with \(w_H(x)\) is described.