Multiple Hermite polynomials and simultaneous Gaussian quadrature

Abstract

Multiple Hermite polynomials are an extension of the classical Hermite polynomials for which orthogonality conditions are imposed with respect to $r>1$ normal (Gaussian) weights $w_j(x)=e^{-x^2+c_jx}$ with different means $c_j/2$, $1 \leq j \leq r$. These polynomials have a number of properties, such as a Rodrigues formula, recurrence relations (connecting polynomials with nearest neighbor multi-indices), a differential equation, etc. The asymptotic distribution of the (scaled) zeros is investigated and an interesting new feature happens: depending on the distance between the $c_j$, $1 \leq j \leq r$, the zeros may accumulate on $s$ disjoint intervals, where $1 \leq s \leq r$. We will use the zeros of these multiple Hermite polynomials to approximate integrals of the form $\displaystyle \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} f(x) \exp(-x^2 + c_jx)\, dx$ simultaneously for $1 \leq j \leq r$ for the case $r=3$ and the situation when the zeros accumulate on three disjoint intervals. We also give some properties of the corresponding quadrature weights.