Chebyshev polynomials on symmetric matrices (Q2431163)

The authors study the symmetric adjacency matrices of simply laced and extended Dynkin diagrams. These diagrams play an important role in Lie-theory (classification of root-systems), they also appear in singularity theory (linked to Kleinian singularies) and in representation theory of algebras (classification of symmetric algebras of radical cube zero of finite and tame representation type). This last mentioned classification motivated the study of Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind, evaluated at the adjacency matrices of the aforementioned Dynkin diagrams. The layout of the paper is as follows: Section 2: definition of the Chebyshev polynomials, Section 3: the values of the polynomials are periodic and grow linearly, Section 4: the values govern the minimal projective resolution of the symmetric algebras of radical cube zero, Section 5: Chebyshev polynomials evaluated at positive, symmetric matrices. It is quite interesting that the main tools, the Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind, are introduced through their recurrence relation and as \(\det(2xI_n-A_n)\) (where \(A_n\) is the \(n\times n\) matrix whose elements are zero, except for the first super- and sub-diagonal, where the entries are one). There is no mentioning at all of their orthogonality properties (which also imply certain minimality and projection properties).