Orthogonal matrix polynomials and higher order recurrence relations

Abstract

It is well-known that orthogonal polynomials on the real line satisfy a three-term recurrence relation and conversely every system of polynomials satisfying a three-term recurrence relation is orthogonal with respect to some positive Borel measure on the real line. In this paper we extend this result and show that every system of polynomials satisfying some $(2N+1)$-term recurrence relation can be expressed in terms of orthonormal matrix polynomials for which the coefficients are $N\times N$ matrices. We apply this result to polynomials orthogonal with respect to a discrete Sobolev inner product and other inner products in the linear space of polynomials. As an application we give a short proof of Krein's characterization of orthogonal polynomials with a spectrum having a finite number of accumulation points.