Second-Order Differential Operators Having Several Families of Orthogonal Matrix Polynomials as Eigenfunctions

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to bring into the picture a new phenomenon in the theory of orthogonal matrix polynomials satisfying second order differential equations. The last few years have witnessed some examples of a (fixed) family of orthogonal matrix polynomials whose elements are common eigenfunctions of several linearly independent second order differential operators. We show that the dual situation is also possible: there are examples of different families of matrix polynomials, each family orthogonal with respect to a different weight matrix, whose elements are eigenfunctions of a common second order differential operator. These examples are constructed by adding a discrete mass at certain point to a weight matrix: $\widetilde{W}=W+\delta_{t_0}M(t_0)$. Our method consists in showing how to choose the discrete mass $M(t_0)$, the point $t_0$ where the mass lives and the weight matrix $W$ so that the new weight matrix $\widetilde{W}$ inherits some of the symmetric second order differential operators associated with $W$. It is well known that this situation is not possible for the classical scalar families of Hermite, Laguerre and Jacobi.