Hankel determinants of linear combinations of moments of orthogonal polynomials. II (Q6098230)

Let \(\{p_{n}(x)\}_{n\geq0}\) be a sequence of monic polynomials over a field \(\mathbb{K}\) of characteristic zero, with deg \( p_{n}(x) = n,\) and assume that they are orthogonal with respect to a linear functional \(L\), i.e., they satisfy \(L(p_{m}(x)p_{n}(x)) = k_{n} \delta_{m,n}\) with \(k_n\neq0\) for every nonnegative integer number \( n,\) and \(\delta_{m,n}\) is the Kronecker delta. Let denote by \(\mu_{n}\) the \(n\)-th moment of \(L\) (see [\textit{T. S. Chihara}, An introduction to orthogonal polynomials. New York, NY: Gordon \& Breach Science Publishers (1978; Zbl 0389.33008)]). The aim of this contribution is to deduce a formula that expresses the Hankel determinants of a linear combination of length \(d+1\) of moments associated with the linear functional \(L\) in terms of a \(d\times d\) determinant of the orthogonal polynomials. More precisely, given \(d\) variables \( x_{1}, \dots, x_{d}, \) then \[ \frac{\det_{0 \leq i, j\leq n-1} (\mu^{i+j} \prod_{l=1}^{d} (x_{l} + \mu))}{H_{n}}= (-1)^{nd} \frac{\det_{1\leq i, j\leq d} \det (p_{n+i-1}(-x_{j}))}{\prod_{1\leq i <j\leq d}(x_{i}- x_{j})}. \] Here \(H_{n} =\det_{0\leq i, j\leq n-1}(\mu_{i+j})\) is the Hankel determinant of size \(n\times n\) for the sequence of moments and the umbral calculus notation \(\mu^{n}= \mu_{n}\) is used in the numerator of the left hand side of the above identity. The numerator of the right-hand side is related to the so-called Christoffel formula that appears in the framework of perturbations of linear functionals by polynomials. Four essentially different proofs of the above result are given in the paper. The first one uses classical formulae from the theory of orthogonal polynomials, see [\textit{A. Lascoux}, Symmetric functions and combinatorial operators on polynomials. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2003; Zbl 1039.05066)]. The second one is based on a vanishing argument and is due to \textit{M. Elouafi} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 431, No. 2, 1253--1274 (2015; Zbl 1366.15022)]. The third one is inspired by random matrix theory and appears in [\textit{E. Brézin} and \textit{S. Hikami}, Commun. Math. Phys. 214, No. 1, 111--135 (2000; Zbl 1042.82017)]. Therein the Heine's formula and Vandermonde determinants are used. The fourth one uses (Dodgson) condensation and provides inductive proofs based on a determinant identity due to Jacobi. Two illustrative applications of the above formula are presented. In the first one, the computation of such Hankel determinants in a singular case is given. The second one deals with the linear recurrence of such Hankel determinants for a certain sequence of moments that covers many classical combinatorial sequences, including Catalan numbers, Motzkin numbers, central binomial coefficients, central trinomial coefficients, central Delannoy numbers, Schröder numbers, Riordan numbers, and Fine numbers, among others.