Irreducibility of generalized Hermite-Laguerre Polynomials III

Abstract

For a positive integer $n$ and a real number $α$, the generalized Laguerre polynomials are defined by \begin{align*} L^{(α)}_n(x)=\sum^n_{j=0}\frac{(n+α)(n-1+α)\cdots (j+1+α)(-x)^j}{j!(n-j)!}. \end{align*} These orthogonal polynomials are solutions to Laguerre's Differential Equation which arises in the treatment of the harmonic oscillator in quantum mechanics. Schur studied these Laguerre polynomials for its interesting algebraic properties. He obtained irreducibility results of $L^{(\pm \frac{1}{2})}_n(x)$ and $L^{(\pm \frac{1}{2})}_n(x^2)$ and derived that the Hermite polynomials $H_{2n}(x)$ and $\frac{H_{2n+1}(x)}{x}$ are irreducible for each $n$. In this article, we extend Schur's result by showing that the family of Laguerre polynomials $L^{(q)}_n(x)$ and $L^{(q)}_n(x^d)$ with $q\in \{\pm \frac{1}{3}, \pm \frac{2}{3}, \pm \frac{1}{4}, \pm \frac{3}{4}\}$, where $d$ is the denominator of $q$, are irreducible for every $n$ except when $q=\frac{1}{4}, n=2$ where we give the complete factorization. In fact, we derive it from a more general result.