Structure Relations of Classical Orthogonal Polynomials in the Quadratic and $q$-Quadratic Variable

TL;DR

This paper establishes a connection between structure relations, orthogonality of derivatives, and Sturm-Liouville equations for classical orthogonal polynomials, identifying Wilson, continuous dual Hahn, and Askey-Wilson polynomials as unique solutions.

Contribution

It proves the equivalence of structure relations, derivative orthogonality, and Sturm-Liouville equations for classical orthogonal polynomials, extending previous results and solving a conjecture by Ismail.

Findings

Only Wilson, continuous dual Hahn, and Askey-Wilson polynomials satisfy the first structure relation.

Explicit solutions to a key difference equation are provided.

A second structure relation for these polynomials is derived.

Abstract

We prove an equivalence between the existence of the first structure relation satisfied by a sequence of monic orthogonal polynomials $\{P_n\}_{n=0}^{\infty}$, the orthogonality of the second derivatives $\{\mathbb{D}_{x}^2P_n\}_{n= 2}^{\infty}$ and a generalized Sturm-Liouville type equation. Our treatment of the generalized Bochner theorem leads to explicit solutions of the difference equation [Vinet L., Zhedanov A., J. Comput. Appl. Math. 211 (2008), 45-56], which proves that the only monic orthogonal polynomials that satisfy the first structure relation are Wilson polynomials, continuous dual Hahn polynomials, Askey-Wilson polynomials and their special or limiting cases as one or more parameters tend to $\infty$. This work extends our previous result [arXiv:1711.03349] concerning a conjecture due to Ismail. We also derive a second structure relation for polynomials satisfying the first structure relation.