Companion linear functionals and Sobolev inner products: a case study (Q2577081)

Let \(\mathbb P\) be the space of all polynomials with real coefficients. A linear functional \(U:\mathbb P\to\mathbb R\) is said to be semiclassical if there exists two polynomials \(\varphi\) and \(\psi\) such that the following distributional Pearson equation holds \[ D(\varphi U)=\psi U \tag{1} \] where linear functionals \(\psi U\) and \(D(\varphi U)\) are defined as \[ \langle \psi U,p \rangle:=\langle U,\psi p \rangle, \quad \langle D(\varphi U),p \rangle=-\langle U,\varphi p' \rangle,\quad p\in\mathbb P. \] A semiclassical linear functional \(U\) is said to be of class \(s\) if \[ \min_\Omega\max(\deg \varphi-2, \deg \psi-1)=s \] where \(\Omega=\Omega(U)\) is the set of all possible pairs of polynomials \(\varphi,\psi\) from Pearson equation (1). Let \(V,U\) be two quasi-definite linear functionals on \(\mathbb P\) and let \(\{R_n\},\{P_n\}\) be corresponding sequences of monic orthogonal polynomials, i.e., \[ \deg R_n=\deg P_n=n \quad\text{and}\quad \frac1{K_n}\langle U,R_nR_m \rangle=\frac1{\Gamma_n}\langle V,P_nP_m \rangle=\delta_{n,m} \] where \(K_n\neq0\neq\Gamma_n\) and \(\delta_{n,m}\) is Kronecker delta. The following problem is completely solved: ``Describe the pairs of quasi-definite linear functionals \(U,V\) for which the differential relation \[ \frac{R'_{n+1}(x)}{n+1}+b_n\frac{R'_n(x)}{n}=P_n(x)+a_nP_{n-1}(x) \tag{2} \] holds for all positive integer \(n\) with \( b_n\neq0\).'' The authors prove that at least one of the functionals \(U,V\) is semiclassical of class at most 1 if the differential relation (2) holds, and this fact gives a clue to the structure of pairs \((U,V)\).