Coupled GUE-minor Processes

Abstract

This paper deals with two GUE-matrices, coupled together through some inequalities between the spectra of the first few (small) principal minors. The main results of the paper is to show that the spectra of the principal minors of these coupled matrices behave statistically as the domino tilings of finitely overlapping Aztec diamonds when their sizes get very large, with horizontal and vertical dominos being equally likely. This extends naturally a result of Johansson and Nordenstam in [17], stating that the spectra of the principal minors of a GUE-matrix behave statistically as domino tilings of an Aztec diamond, near the middle of its edge. Given the spectra of the two coupled matrices, the joint spectra of the underlying principal minors of the two GUE-matrices are uniformly distributed in a certain "double cone". In particular, this leads to two GUE-matrices sharing the same real line, with one spectrum being completely to the left of the other spectrum; this gives a new and simple extension of GUE. Also notice that all statements concerning these coupled random matrices have a domino tiling counterpart.