Asymptotics of Fredholm determinant associated with the Pearcey kernel

Abstract

The Pearcey kernel is a classical and universal kernel arising from random matrix theory, which describes the local statistics of eigenvalues when the limiting mean eigenvalue density exhibits a cusp-like singularity. It appears in a variety of statistical physics models beyond matrix models as well. We consider the Fredholm determinant of a trace class operator acting on $L^2\left(-s, s\right)$ with the Pearcey kernel. Based on a steepest descent analysis for a $3\times 3$ matrix-valued Riemann-Hilbert problem, we obtain asymptotics of the Fredholm determinant as $s\to +\infty$, which is also interpreted as large gap asymptotics in the context of random matrix theory.