Self-adjoint difference operators and classical solutions to the Stieltjes–Wigert moment problem

Abstract

The Stieltjes–Wigert polynomials, which correspond to an indeterminate moment problem on the positive half-line, are eigenfunctions of a second order q-difference operator. We consider the orthogonality measures for which the difference operator is symmetric in the corresponding weighted L 2 -spaces. Under some additional assumptions these measures are exactly the solutions to the q-Pearson equation. In the case of discrete and absolutely continuous measures the difference operator is essentially self-adjoint, and the corresponding spectral decomposition is given explicitly. In particular, we find an orthogonal set of q-Bessel functions complementing the Stieltjes–Wigert polynomials to an orthogonal basis for L 2 ( μ ) when μ is a discrete orthogonality measure solving the q-Pearson equation. To obtain the spectral decomposition of the difference operator in case of an absolutely continuous orthogonality measure we use the results from the discrete case combined with direct integral techniques.