Three mutually adjacent Leonard pairs (Q2568357)

The notion of a Leonard pair was recently introduced by \textit{P. Terwilliger} [Linear Algebra Appl. 330, No. 1--3, 149--203 (2001; Zbl 0980.05054)]. This is a pair of linear transformations \((A,A^\ast)\) on a finite dimensional vector space, such that (i) in some basis \(A\) is tridiagonal and \(A^*\) diagonal, and (ii) in some other basis \(A\) is diagonal and \(A^*\) is tridiagonal. It is also assumed that both tridiagonal forms are irreducible, i.e., the sub- and super-diagonal have only nonzero entries. It is known that for each Leonard pair \((A,A^\ast)\) there exists a split basis, i.e., such a basis, with respect to which the matrix representing one of \((A,A^\ast)\) is lower bidiagonal and the matrix representing the other of \((A,A^\ast)\) is upper bidiagonal [see \textit{P. Terwilliger}, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 153, No. 1--2, 463--475 (2003; Zbl 1035.05103)]. The paper under review continues with the investigation of Leonard pairs. The author defines two Leonard pairs \((A,A^\ast)\) and \((B,B^\ast)\) to be \textit{adjacent} if any basis that satisfies the above (i) or (ii) for \((A,A^\ast)\), is a split basis for \((B,B^\ast)\). It is then shown that adjacency is a symmetric relation among Leonard pairs. The author proceeds by demonstrating that there exists at most three mutually adjacent Leonard pairs on a vector space over a field of characteristic~\(0\). An explicit construction is given which proves that the bound three can be obtained. Moreover, the existence of precisely three mutually adjacent Leonard pairs is characterized in terms of the eigenvalues.