Information-theoretic-based spreading measures of orthogonal polynomials

Abstract

The macroscopic properties of a quantum system strongly depend on the spreading of the physical eigenfunctions (wavefunctions) of its Hamiltonian operador over its confined domain. The wavefunctions are often controlled by classical or hypergeometric-type orthogonal polynomials (Hermite, Laguerre and Jacobi). Here we discuss the spreading of these polynomials over its orthogonality interval by means of various information-theoretic quantities which grasp some facets of the polynomial distribution not yet analyzed. We consider the information-theoretic lengths closely related to the Fisher information and R\'enyi and Shannon entropies, which quantify the polynomial spreading far beyond the celebrated standard deviation.