Chebyshev polynomials, Catalan numbers, and tridiagonal matrices

Abstract

We establish a relation between linear second-order difference equations corresponding to Chebyshev polynomials and Catalan numbers. The latter are the limit coefficients of a converging series of rational functions corresponding to the Riccati equation. As the main application, we show a relation between the polynomials $$ \varphi _n(\mu)$$ that are solutions of the problem of commutation of a tridiagonal matrix with the simplest Vandermonde matrix and Chebyshev polynomials.