Orthogonality of Jacobi polynomials with general parameters (Q2388690)

Let \(P_{n}^{(\alpha,\beta)}(z)\) be the Jacobi polynomials of degree \(n\) and order \((\alpha,\beta)\). It is well-known that when \(\alpha,\beta>-1\), these polynomials are orthogonal on \([-1,1]\) with respect to the weight function \((1-z)^{\alpha}\,(1+z)^{\beta}\). As a result of the orthogonality, all their zeros are simple and belong to the interval \((-1,\,1)\). This is no longer valid for general parameters \(\alpha,\beta \in \mathbb{C}\). In this paper the authors show that for \(\alpha,\beta \in \mathbb{C}\), but excluding some special cases, the Jacobi polynomials \(P_{n}^{(\alpha,\beta)}(z)\) may still be characterized by orthogonality relations. In particular, they establish orthogonality on a generic closed contour on a Riemann surface. Depending on the parameters, this leads to either full orthogonality conditions on a single contour in the plane, or to multiple orthogonality conditions on a number of contours in the plane. The new orthogonality conditions obtained in this paper can be useful in the study of the zeros of the polynomials \(P_{n}^{(\alpha,\beta)}(z)\) when the parameters \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are not \(>-1\) and they also can be applied to establish asymptotic properties of these polynomials.