Constructing bispectral orthogonal polynomials from the classical discrete families of Charlier, Meixner and Krawtchouk (Q2257719)

A very interesting problem in the theory of orthogonal polynomials and special functions is the so-called bispectral problem see [\textit{J. J. Duistermaat} and \textit{F. A. Grünbaum}, Commun. Math. Phys. 103, 177--240 (1986; Zbl 0625.34007)]. The classical orthogonal polynomials \((P_n)(x)\) are instances of the solutions of such a problem since they satisfy a differential/difference equation in \(x\) of the form \(D(P_n)=\lambda_nP_n\), where \(D\) is a second order linear differential/difference operator and \(\lambda_n\) a number sequence, but also they satisfy a difference equation in the spectral parameter \(n\) (the so-called three-term recurrence relation, that is a consequence of the orthogonality with respect to regular functional or a measure). In the current paper the authors present a general algebraic method for obtaining new solutions of the bispectral problem. The starting point is a sequence of polynomials \((p_n)_n\), an algebra of operators \(\mathcal{A}\) acting in the linear space of polynomials, and an operator \(D_p\in\mathcal{A}\) with \(D_p(p_n)= np_n\). Then, the idea is to built a new sequence of polynomials \(q_n=p_n+\sum_{j=1}^m\beta_{n,j}p_{n-j}\) such that the polynomials \(q_n\) are eigenfunctions of an operator in the algebra \(\mathcal{A}\). To achieve that they use the concept of \(\mathcal{D}\) operator introduced in [\textit{A. J. Durán}, J. Approx. Theory 174, 10--53 (2013; Zbl 1286.34114)]. Finally, some examples related with the Charlier, Meixner, and Charlier polynomials are worked out in order to show how the method works.