q-Racah polynomials

In mathematics, the q-Racah polynomials are a family of basic hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials in the basic Askey scheme, introduced by Askey & Wilson (1979). Roelof Koekoek, Peter A. Lesky, and René F. Swarttouw (2010, 14) give a detailed list of their properties.

Definition

The polynomials are given in terms of basic hypergeometric functions and the Pochhammer symbol by

$p_{n}(q^{-x}+q^{x+1}cd;a,b,c,d;q)={}_{4}\phi _{3}\left[{\begin{matrix}q^{-n}&abq^{n+1}&q^{-x}&q^{x+1}cd\\aq&bdq&cq\\\end{matrix}};q;q\right]$

They are sometimes given with changes of variables as

$W_{n}(x;a,b,c,N;q)={}_{4}\phi _{3}\left[{\begin{matrix}q^{-n}&abq^{n+1}&q^{-x}&cq^{x-n}\\aq&bcq&q^{-N}\\\end{matrix}};q;q\right]$

Relation to other polynomials

q-Racah polynomials→Racah polynomials

References

• Askey, Richard; Wilson, James (1979), "A set of orthogonal polynomials that generalize the Racah coefficients or 6-j symbols", SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, 10 (5): 1008–1016, doi:10.1137/0510092, ISSN 0036-1410, MR 0541097
• Gasper, George; Rahman, Mizan (2004), Basic hypergeometric series, Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications, 96 (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, doi:10.2277/0521833574, ISBN 978-0-521-83357-8, MR 2128719
• Koekoek, Roelof; Lesky, Peter A.; Swarttouw, René F. (2010), Hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials and their q-analogues, Springer Monographs in Mathematics, Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-05014-5, ISBN 978-3-642-05013-8, MR 2656096
• Koornwinder, Tom H.; Wong, Roderick S. C.; Koekoek, Roelof; Swarttouw, René F. (2010), http://dlmf.nist.gov/18, in Olver, Frank W. J.; Lozier, Daniel M.; Boisvert, Ronald F.; Clark, Charles W. (eds.), NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-19225-5, MR 2723248