Breakdown of universality in multi-cut matrix models

Abstract

We solve the puzzle of the disagreement between orthogonal polynomials methods and mean field calculations for random NxN matrices with a disconnected eigenvalue support. We show that the difference does not stem from a Z2 symmetry breaking, but from the discreteness of the number of eigenvalues. This leads to additional terms (quasiperiodic in N) which must be added to the naive mean field expressions. Our result invalidates the existence of a smooth topological large N expansion and some postulated universality properties of correlators. We derive the large N expansion of the free energy for the general 2-cut case. From it we rederive by a direct and easy mean-field-like method the 2-point correlators and the asymptotic orthogonal polynomials. We extend our results to any number of cuts and to non-real potentials.