2.1. Basic Definitions
The definition of -classical orthogonal polynomials captures the essential property that the image of the polynomial sequence under the operator remains orthogonal. This seemingly simple condition imposes strong constraints on the possible forms of both the polynomials and the operator, leading to the main classification theorems that characterize the classical families.
Let be the space of all polynomials in a single variable with coefficients from the field of complex numbers. We consider a specific type of operator, denoted by , which acts as a lowering operator on this space . The action of this operator is characterized by the following three fundamental properties. First, the operator maps the entire space of polynomials back into itself; formally, this is expressed by the condition . Second, the operator annihilates constant polynomials, a property captured by the requirement that . Third, and most crucially, the operator reduces the degree of each monomial by exactly one; that is, for every natural number , the degree of the image of under satisfies . Here, represents the set of all positive integers, and we define to include zero. In the study of orthogonal polynomials, these kinds of operators are important tools, as they help us systematically describe and organize different polynomial sequences. A key use for them is to define specific families of polynomials, as shown in the following basic definition.
Definition 1. A MOPS denoted by , is classified specifically as an -classical orthogonal polynomial sequence if the new sequence generated by applying the lowering operator to each polynomial in the original sequence (with an index shift) itself constitutes a monic orthogonal polynomial sequence. More precisely, this means the sequence defined bymust be a MOPS. The scalar factor in the denominator is a constant, chosen specifically to ensure that the leading coefficient of each resulting polynomial is scaled to one, thereby ensuring the monic property of the new sequence. This normalization factor is crucial for the stability of the three-term recurrence relation and the associated orthogonality measures.
Various lowering operators, including the classical derivative operator
D, the forward difference operator
, and the Jackson
q-derivative
, form the basis for the classification of orthogonal polynomial sequences. The concept of
-classical orthogonal polynomials serves as a unifying theory that encompasses numerous classical families. For instance, when
, one recovers the well-known continuous families such as the Jacobi, Laguerre, Hermite, and Bessel polynomials. On the other hand, choosing
yields discrete orthogonal families like the Charlier, Meixner, Krawtchouk, and Hahn polynomials (see [
5]).
The
q-difference operator
is expressed as [
6]
with
Typically, for
to be well-defined on all
,
q must avoid values that cause degeneracies for any polynomial. Specifically, to ensure
is non-degenerate on all
,
should exclude all roots of unity and zero. When
q goes to 1, we obtain the usual differential operator
D.
The operator
is extended to a map
by
where
denotes the pairing between
and
. This definition mimics the distributional derivative, i.e., if
and
, then the right-hand side
is well-defined since
, and the left-hand side
defines a new linear functional
on
.
Extending to linear functionals via duality is crucial for studying orthogonality. This approach allows us to work with moment functionals and orthogonal polynomial sequences without explicit knowledge of the weight function, which is particularly valuable for q-polynomials where the weight functions may be complicated or expressed in terms of special functions. The duality relation ensures consistency with integration by parts formulas and maintains the mathematical structure familiar from the classical theory.
In [
7], the authors investigate the Hahn-type characterization property, originally introduced in [
8], within the setting of the Dunkl operator of index
, defined on the space of real-coefficient polynomials by
This operator combines a derivative term and a difference term that measures the odd part of Q relative to the reflection . Their main result identifies all sequences of symmetric monic orthogonal polynomials that remain orthogonal under the action of . It turns out that only the generalized Hermite and generalized Gegenbauer polynomials satisfy this property.
In a related study [
9], it is shown that a linear functional
u, corresponding to a Dunkl-classical MOPS satisfies a
-Pearson-type equation. An alternative characterization of such orthogonal families is also given in terms of structure relations. Additionally, in [
10], the uniqueness of the generalized Hermite and Gegenbauer polynomials as symmetric Dunkl-classical orthogonal sequences is confirmed via a different method from that in [
7], relying on a differential-difference equation in the dual space. From this perspective, the first structure relation for symmetric MOPS naturally emerges.
When
, the classical structure relation characterization of Jacobi, Laguerre, Hermite, and Bessel polynomials has already been established in [
11]. Furthermore, ref. [
4] provides a characterization of Dunkl-classical orthogonal polynomials using a second structure relation, which serves as a Dunkl analogue of a well-known result from [
12] in the classical case.
A natural extension of this line of research is the study of the
q-Dunkl operator
, defined as
where
denotes the Jackson
q-derivative.
Specifically, in the case of the monomial sequence
, it holds that
where
is the
q-number.
This key q-Dunkl operator consists of the fundamental operator (which is the q-derivative component serving as a q-analogue of derivative) and a -term that handles parity, i.e., equal to 0 for even n and for odd n. Clearly, the operator is indeed a lowering operator.
By applying the formal operation of transposition to the
q-Dunkl operator
, which maps the operator to its dual acting on the space of linear functionals, we derive a fundamental property of its adjoint. The resulting computation shows a specific antisymmetry inherent to the operator, which is concisely captured by the following identity:
This relation signifies that the transposed operator is precisely the negative of the original operator, a property that influences the analysis of the structure of related orthogonal polynomial sequences. This antisymmetric behavior under transposition is a characteristic feature of this particular operator within the functional analytic framework being developed.
This operator preserves the polynomial space and lowers degrees by one, as in the classical derivative. The
q-Dunkl operator
represents a significant generalization that encompasses both the
q-derivative and the Dunkl operator as special cases. When
, we recover the pure
q-derivative
, while if
q approaches 1, we obtain the classical Dunkl operator
[
13].
In this direction, refs. [
3,
14] prove that, up to a dilation, the
-analogues of the generalized Hermite and generalized Gegenbauer polynomials are the only symmetric OPS that are
q-Dunkl-classical in the sense of Hahn.
2.3. Basic Tools
Recall that
was defined to denote the vector space of all polynomials in one variable with complex coefficients. Its algebraic dual space, containing all linear functionals on
, is denoted by
. For any linear functional
and polynomial
, the duality pairing is expressed as
. The moments of the functional
u are defined through evaluation on monomials, yielding the sequence
The following operator identities are essential for subsequent analyses [
6]:
Equation (
2) decomposes the
q-difference of a polynomial functional product into two terms: the first involves the scaled polynomial acting on the
q-difference of the functional, while the second combines the inverse
q-difference of the polynomial with the original functional. The composition of inverse
q-difference and
q-scaling can be expressed as a scaled
q-difference operator:
Also, note that scaling the product of a polynomial and functional is equivalent to multiplying the inversely scaled polynomial with the scaled functional:
Definition 2 (see [
15])
. A linear functional u acting on the vector space of polynomials is said to be regular, or alternatively quasi-definite, provided that there exists a sequence of monic polynomials with the degree of each polynomial must be exactly equal to its index, meaning for all , satisfying the orthogonality relations:where the constants are nonzero complex numbers whose values are permitted to depend on the index n, and denotes the Kronecker delta. Any polynomial sequence fulfilling these conditions is referred to as the monic orthogonal polynomial sequence (MOPS) corresponding to the regular functional u. A fundamental characterization states that every MOPS satisfies a TTRR of the form
with
and
, where
are complex recurrence coefficients that determine linear shifts of the polynomial argument, and
are non-zero complex coefficients that govern the coupling between consecutive polynomials, satisfying
for all
. This non-vanishing condition is equivalent to the non-degeneracy of the associated moment functional, while the recurrence relation provides a complete algebraic characterization of MOPS.
The functional u is normalized when its zeroth moment satisfies . In practical applications, this normalization ensures consistency with probabilistic and physical systems where total measure is unitary. All functional forms considered hereafter will be assumed normalized.
The following proposition further investigates the relation between MOPS and TTRR.
Proposition 1 ([
16,
17])
. Consider a monic polynomial sequence where each has degree exactly n, along with its dual sequence of linear functionals. The following conditions are equivalent:- (i)
The polynomial sequence is orthogonal relative to the initial functional , i.e., for with nonzero norms.
- (ii)
Each dual functional is explicitly determined by the initial functional through the scaling relation: - (iii)
The sequence satisfies the TTRR:with coefficients and defined by the moment relations:
This proposition shows that if the sequence is orthogonal with respect to , then the form can be written, via dual basis expansion, as a normalized rescaling of the composition of and , ensuring the duality condition holds. To obtain orthogonality from TTRR, we apply mathematical induction on the recurrence to prove pairwise orthogonality, where the base case holds by ’s definition and the inductive step uses the recurrence structure with .
It is a well-established fact that the application of a dilation constitutes a symmetry operation for systems characterized by orthogonality relations. More precisely, consider a dilation operator
defined by its action on a function
f as
for some nonzero scaling parameter
a. If a sequence of polynomials is orthogonal with respect to a given inner product, then the transformed sequence by
will also form an orthogonal set. This invariance arises because the dilation induces a change of variable that scales the underlying measure of orthogonality in a corresponding manner, thereby preserving the fundamental structure of the orthogonality relations. Consequently, the property of orthogonality remains unchanged under such a scaling transformation. The sequence
defined by
satisfies the following relations:
and
with
The polynomial sequence
is orthogonal with respect to the linear functional
obtained through the scaling transformation
where
denotes the argument scaling operator.
A linear functional
u is called symmetric when all its odd moments vanish identically:
This moment condition implies that the functional remains invariant under the reflection . When such a symmetric functional u is regular (quasi-definite), the associated MOPS is said to be symmetric.
If the polynomials alternate in parity, then the linear recurrence coefficients vanish. Conversely, if the recurrence coefficients are zero, then the polynomials must possess the alternating parity property and hence the sequence will be symmetric.
Proposition 2 (see [
15])
. Let denote a MOPS which is defined by the recurrence relation (5) and which is orthogonal relative to a given linear functional u. Under these assumptions, the following three statements are equivalent:- (a)
The polynomial sequence is symmetric.
- (b)
.
- (c)
The recurrence coefficients associated with the sequence, as they appear in the recurrence relation (5), are identically zero for all indices .
Remark 1. The symmetric property implies that the sequences of even and odd parts are also orthogonal:where and are MOPS with respect to modified functionals. This decomposition is utilized in our analysis of q-Dunkl-classical polynomials. The following lemma establishes an equivalence between two properties of a linear functional u acting on polynomials and its relationship with a polynomial sequence .
Lemma 1 ([
16,
17])
. Consider an arbitrary linear functional u belonging to the dual space of polynomials, and let m be any fixed positive integer, the following statements are equivalent:- (1)
Orthogonality condition: The functional u pairs non-zero with () but vanishes on all higher-degree polynomials in the sequence ( for all ).
- (2)
Basis representation: The functional u admits a representation as a finite linear combination of the functionals which constitute the dual basis. More precisely, it can be written in the form , where each coefficient is a uniquely determined complex number, and the last coefficient is non-zero, i.e.,
This equivalence means that the vanishing of u on higher-degree polynomials is equivalent to u being spanned by the first m dual functionals, with the representation necessarily including the -th functional. The non-vanishing condition corresponds directly to , ensuring the representation does not terminate earlier than .
Next, we recall the notion of an
-semiclassical functional, a concept that will be fundamental for our subsequent analysis. A linear form
u is called
-semiclassical if the form is regular, meaning it generates a complete MOPS, and there must exist a pair of polynomials, denoted by
and
, with the following properties: the polynomial
is monic, and its degree is a non-negative integer
, while the degree of
is a positive integer
. Together, these polynomials are required to satisfy a specific
q-deformation of the Pearson-type differential equation, expressed in the distributional sense as
Furthermore, the pair
must be admissible. This admissibility condition imposes a specific constraint on the leading coefficient of
; namely, in the case where the degrees are related by
, if we express the polynomial
in its expanded form as
then it is necessary that the leading coefficient
is not equal to
for any natural number
. When these conditions are met, the associated monic orthogonal polynomial sequence
is itself classified as
-semiclassical [
18,
19]. For a semiclassical functional
u fulfilling Equation (
9), its class, denoted by the integer
s, is formally defined as the smallest possible value of the quantity
. This class is thus given by
where the minimization is performed over all admissible polynomial pairs
that satisfy the fundamental Equation (
9). This definition determines
s as the smallest possible value obtained by comparing the adjusted degrees of
and
across all valid pairs, with
representing the degree reduction for
and
corresponding to the degree adjustment for
. The existence of this minimum within the set of non-negative integers is assured due to the fact that the degrees of the polynomials
and
are finite, which restricts the possible values of the expression
to a discrete, well-ordered set. A particularly important special case arises when the class of the form is zero, that is, when
. In this specific situation, the form
u is conventionally referred to as
-classical, representing a natural
q-generalization of the well-known classical orthogonal polynomials [
6]. An essential and useful property of the
-semiclassical characterization is its invariance under the operation of a dilation. As established in [
19], this characteristic is preserved when the functional is transformed in this manner. To be more precise, if the original functional
u satisfies the Pearson-type Equation (
9), then the transformed functional
obtained through dilation will satisfy a corresponding, albeit transformed, Pearson equation. This new equation is given explicitly by
Furthermore, the recurrence coefficients and associated with the orthogonal polynomial sequence for this transformed functional maintain the same general form and relationship as those previously described for the original sequence.
Remark 2. The q-semiclassical forms provide a natural environment for studying q-Dunkl-classical polynomials, as they satisfy distributional equations that generalize the Pearson equation to the q-case.
This remark highlights the fundamental relationship between q-Dunkl-classical polynomials and the more general category of q-semiclassical orthogonal polynomials. The q-semiclassical framework offers a natural mathematical context for understanding these polynomials because they satisfy specialized equations that extend the classical Pearson equation into the q-calculus domain. This generalized Pearson equation serves as the q-analogue of the classical differential equation governing traditional orthogonal polynomials but adapted to accommodate both the q-difference operators and the reflection symmetries inherent in Dunkl operator theory. Consequently, the q-semiclassical scheme provides the necessary theoretical foundation for classifying q-Dunkl-classical polynomials and also explains their structural properties, such as the finite expansion observed in the second structure relation.
Definition 3. A MOPS , which is orthogonal with respect to a given linear functional , is classified as -classical or, alternatively, as q-Dunkl-classical, provided there exists another MOPS, denoted by , such that the action of the q-Dunkl operator on each polynomial yields a scalar multiple of the corresponding polynomial from the derived sequence. This relationship is formally expressed by the operator equationwhere is a nonzero complex constant whose value depends on the index n. In such a case, the original linear functional with respect to which the sequence is orthogonal is itself also termed a q-Dunkl-classical linear functional. Remark 3. The sequence can be viewed as the q-Dunkl derivative of the original sequence. For q-Dunkl-classical polynomials, this derived sequence remains orthogonal, which is a highly restrictive property characterizing classical families.
For any MPS
we define
, as
or equivalently
where
is a normalization factor that never vanishes for regular sequences, given by
Let
and
denote the dual bases in
corresponding to the polynomial sequences
and
, respectively. Then, by applying Lemma 1 together with Equation (
1), we obtain the following fundamental relation:
The primary objective of the present investigation is to derive a new characterization of symmetric orthogonal
q-polynomials of the
-classical type. This characterization will be formulated in terms of a distinctive algebraic identity known as a structure relation. More precisely, we aim to demonstrate that every MOPS
which is symmetric and whose elements satisfy a specific TTRR of the form
such that the derived sequence
, given by (
10), is also orthogonal. This structure relation will serve as a necessary and sufficient condition for the sequence to be
q-Dunkl-classical, thereby providing a powerful tool for the classification and analysis of such polynomial sequences.
Remark 4. The three-term recurrence coefficients can be computed efficiently using The symmetry of
implies the symmetry of
. Furthermore, ref. [
10] establishes that
The product rule for
is
For symmetric forms, this simplifies to
It follows then that the derived MOPS
satisfies the following TTRR:
Any symmetric q-Dunkl-classical polynomial sequence can be fully characterized by its orthogonality together with the associated difference equations, as established in the following theorem.
Theorem 1. For any symmetric MOPS , the following are equivalent.
- (i)
The polynomial sequence belongs to the q-Dunkl-classical family.
- (ii)
One can find two specific polynomials, Φ and Ψ, and a sequence of nonzero complex numbers where the polynomial Φ is required to be an even, monic polynomial with a degree of at most two, while Ψ must be an odd polynomial of degree exactly one. With these polynomials, the sequence satisfies the following operator identity for all integers [1]: - (iii)
There exist two polynomials, Φ and Ψ, with the same properties as in (ii) such that the normalized regular linear functional , with respect to which the sequence is orthogonal, satisfies the following distributional q-Dunkl Pearson equation and a non-degeneracy condition:
The first equation governs the behavior of the functional under the combined action of the q-Dunkl operator and multiplication by polynomials, while the second, more technical condition ensures the persistence of regularity for the associated sequence of polynomials. The result establishes a precise relationship between the action of various q-Dunkl and dilation operators on the polynomial and the polynomial itself, scaled by the complex parameter .
Remark 5 ([
1])
. Under conditions of relations (16) and (17), the linear form , associated with , has the following form:where K is a nonzero normalization constant, specifically chosen to guarantee that the polynomial Φ possesses the required property of being monic. Furthermore, the polynomial Ψ, which acts as the counterpart to Φ in the governing equation, is explicitly defined by the expression The previous expression for
emerges from combining the orthogonality conditions with the recurrence structure. Starting from the relations (
16) and (
17), we consider the first associated polynomials
which satisfy shifted orthogonality relative to
. Through the three-term recurrence, the functional equation
must hold. Comparing initial terms with the original sequence shows that
and
necessitate the given connection between
and
. The
factor originates from the perturbation parameter in conditions (
16) and (
17) that modifies the moment sequence.