DEK-type orthogonal polynomials and a modification of the Christoffel formula (Q6056236)

Classical orthogonal polynomials have shown themselves to be very useful in a wide range of various branches of mathematics due the fact they satisfy both differential and difference equations. The authors start considering an example of a potential of an anharmonic oscillator such that the Hamiltonian operator has a strictly equidistant part of the spectrum. In fact, this potential gives rise to the monic polynomials \(F_n(x)\), which we refer to as DEK polynomials, defined by the differential equation \[ (1+x^2)\left(\dfrac{d^2 F_n(x)}{dx^2}-x \dfrac{d F_n(x)}{dx}+(n+2)F_n(x) \right)=4x \dfrac{d F_n(x)}{dx}, \] where \(n = 1, 2, 3, \dots\), \(\deg F_n = n+2\). The above differential equation has a constant solution when \(n = -2\) and for consistency the authors set \(F_0(x) = 1\). Notably, \(F_0(x)\) corresponds to the ground state of the system but the gap separates this state from the first excited state that corresponds to \(F_1(x) = x^3 + 3x\). The authors point out the relation between the sequences of Hermite, \(H_n(x)\), and DEK polynomials, which leads to the relation \[ F_n(x) = (x^3 + 3x)H_{n-1}(x)-(n-1)(1 + x^2)H_{n-2}(x). \] Therefore, using the recurrence relation for Hermite polynomials, \(F_n(x)\) can be written as a linear combination of 3 Hermite polynomials, suggesting that the family of polynomials \(F_n(x)\) can be interpreted as a discrete Darboux transformation for Hermite polynomials. In this work the authors dissect DEK polynomials using discrete Darboux transformations and obtain a characterization bypassing the differential equation that defines DEK polynomials. This characterization also leads to a family of general orthogonal polynomials with missing degrees and this approach manifests its relation to biorthogonal polynomials introduced by \textit{A. Iserles} and \textit{S. P. Nørsett} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 306, No. 2, 455--474 (1988; Zbl 0662.42017)], which are applicable to a whole range of problems in computational and applied analysis. They also obtain a useful modification of the Christoffel formula for this family of polynomials.