\(Q\)-classical orthogonal polynomials: A very classical approach (Q1572618)

The \(q\)-classical polynomials were introduced by Wolfgang Hahn as orthogonal polynomials which have the property that the sequence of their \(L\)-derivatives is also orthogonal. (The \(L\)-derivative is a mixture of a difference operator and the \(q\)-derivative.) By an affine transformation of the variable it is seen that one can restrict oneself to the case when \(L\) is exactly the \(q\)-derivative. These polynomials are of course contained in the Askey scheme of basic hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials. The authors propose an approach to the study of \(q\)-classical polynomials, their classification, and finding of their orthogonality relation by starting from the Sturm-Liouville type equation satisfied by the polynomials, and avoiding ``hypergeometrics'' as much as possible. Then, in the final section, they present the equivalences with the Askey scheme, including in particular the two pages table from Koekoek and Swarttouw's compilation [``The Askey-scheme of hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials and its q-analogue,'' Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems, Department of Technical Mathematics and Informatics, Report no. 98-17, 1998; available at \url{http://aw.twi.tudelft.nl/~koekoek/research.html}] of the polynomials in the Askey scheme with an indication which of them are \(q\)-classical.