Quantum properties of classical Pearson random variables

Abstract

This paper discusses the properties of the canonical quantum decomposition of the classical Pearson random variables. We show that this leads to the problem of representing the creation–annihilation–preservation (CAP) operators canonically associated to a real-valued random variable [Formula: see text] with all moments as (normally ordered) differential operators with polynomial coefficients — a problem already studied in the literature (see references in the introduction). We deduce a formula, for the polynomial coefficients in the representation of the CAP operators of [Formula: see text] as pseudo-differential operators, more explicit than the one existing in the literature. We give a new characterization of the Pearson distributions in terms of the Hermitianity of the associated Sturm–Liouville operators. In the second part of the paper, we introduce the notion of finite type random variable [Formula: see text] and characterize type-[Formula: see text] and type-[Formula: see text] real-valued random variables. We prove that a necessary condition for [Formula: see text] to be of finite type is the polynomial growth of the corresponding principal Jacobi sequence. This allows to single out three classes of random variables of infinite type and to prove that the Beta and the uniform distributions are of infinite type.