Common and interlacing zeros of families of Laguerre~polynomials (Q2339502)

The study of the zeros of orthogonal polynomials is a very interesting and of special importance in numerical applications. Of particular significance are the zeros of the classical orthogonal polynomials (those associated with the name of Jacobi, Laguerre, and Hermite). In the present paper the authors focus on the study of the interlacing properties of the zeros of the Laguerre polynomials \(L_n^{(\alpha)}\) and \(L_{n-k}^{(\alpha+t)}\) with \(\alpha\geq0\), \(k\) is a positive integer \(1\leq k\leq n-1\) and \(t\) is a real number. In fact, they prove that if \(0\leq t\leq 2k\) then the zeros of both families interlace for all \(t\) on the aforesaid interval except for those \(t\) for which \(L_n^{(\alpha)}\) and \(L_{n-k}^{(\alpha+t)}\) have a common zero. The main tool for getting the result is the celebrated Sturm comparison theorem.