Characterization of orthogonal polynomials with respect to a functional (Q1917951)

This is a beautiful paper that studies polynomials orthogonal with respect to a not necessarily definite linear functional \(\mathcal L\) on the set of Laurent polynomials; the results constitute an important step forward in the theory. Start with a `Hermitian' doubly infinite complex moment sequence \(\{c_j\}_{j\in \mathbb{Z}}\) (\(c_j= \overline c_{- j}\), \(j\in \mathbb{N}_0\), and \(\sum^\infty_{j= 0} c_j z^j\) convergent on \(|z|\leq \rho\), \(\rho> 0\)) and define the linear functional \(\mathcal L\) by \[ {\mathcal L} \Biggl( \sum^l_{j= k} b_j z^j\Biggr)= \sum^l_{j= k} b_j c_{- j}\quad (k, l\in \mathbb{Z}, b_j\in \mathbb{C}). \] The study of this type of functional has lately usually been restricted to the area of Padé approximation in the case when \(\mathcal L\) is definite: the associated Hermitian-Toeplitz matrices \((c_{k- m})^n_{k, m= 1}\) are non-singular for \(n\in \mathbb{N}\). The authors now drop this condition of definiteness and study the characterization of the uniquely determined polynomials (referred to as basic) orthogonal with respect to \(\mathcal L\) (not all degrees need to be present and `degree jumps' greater than 1 are possible). This characterization uses the function \[ F_{\mathcal L}(z)= {\mathcal L} \Biggl({y+ z\over y- z}\Biggr)\;({\mathcal L}\text{ acts on } y). \] Also the functional associated with the orthogonal polynomials of the second kind is given and the paper ends with an application to the case of a sign-changing weight (it can also be used in the even more general case of not necessarily positive measures). The case treated is a `weight function' that is supported on several arcs of the unit circle, changes sign from arc to arc and has square root singularities at the boundary points of the arcs.