arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Tom Claeys.
We discuss universality in random matrix theory and in the study of Hamiltonian partial differential equations. We focus on universality of critical behavior and we compare results in unitary random matrix ensembles with their counterparts for the Korteweg-de Vries equation, emphasizing the similarities between both subjects.
We study a family of distributions that arise in critical unitary random matrix ensembles. They are expressed as Fredholm determinants and describe the limiting distribution of the largest eigenvalue when the dimension of the random matrices tends to infinity. The family contains the Tracy-Widom distribution and higher order analogues of it. We compute the distributions numerically by solving a Riemann-Hilbert problem numerically, plot the distributions, and discuss several properties that they appear to exhibit.
The present paper gives an overview of the recent developments in the description of critical behavior for Hamiltonian perturbations of hyperbolic and elliptic systems of partial differential equations. It was conjectured that this behavior can be described in terms of distinguished Painlevé transcendents, which are universal in the sense that they are, to some extent, independent of the equation and the initial data. We will consider several examples of well-known integrable equations that are expected to show this type of Painlevé behavior near critical points. The Riemann-Hilbert method is a useful tool to obtain rigorous results for such equations. We will explain the main lines of this method and we will discuss the universality conjecture from a Riemann-Hilbert point of view.
We establish the existence of real pole-free solutions to all even members of the Painlevé I hierarchy. We also obtain asymptotics for those solutions and describe their relevance in the description of critical asymptotic behavior of solutions to the KdV equation in the small dispersion limit. This was understood in the case of a generic critical point, and we generalize it here to the case of non-generic critical points.
We obtain an asymptotic expansion for the solution of the Cauchy problem for the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation in the small dispersion limit near the point of gradient catastrophe (x_c,t_c) for the solution of the dispersionless equation. The sub-leading term in this expansion is described by the smooth solution of a fourth order ODE, which is a higher order analogue to the Painleve I equation. This is in accordance with a conjecture of Dubrovin, suggesting that this is a universal phenomenon for any Hamiltonian perturbation of a hyperbolic equation. Using the Deift/Zhou steepest descent method applied on the Riemann-Hilbert problem for the KdV equation, we are able to prove the asymptotic expansion rigorously in a double scaling limit.
We study unitary random matrix ensembles in the critical regime where a new cut arises away from the original spectrum. We perform a double scaling limit where the size of the matrices tends to infinity, but in such a way that only a bounded number of eigenvalues is expected in the newborn cut. It turns out that limits of the eigenvalue correlation kernel are given by Hermite kernels corresponding to a finite size Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE). When modifying the double scaling limit slightly, we observe a remarkable transition each time the new cut picks up an additional eigenvalue, leading to a limiting kernel interpolating between GUE-kernels for matrices of size k and size k+1. We prove our results using the Riemann-Hilbert approach.
Unitary random matrix ensembles Z_{n,N}^{-1} (\det M)^alpha exp(-N Tr V(M)) dM defined on positive definite matrices M, where alpha > -1 and V is real analytic, have a hard edge at 0. The equilibrium measure associated with V typically vanishes like a square root at soft edges of the spectrum. For the case that the equilibrium measure vanishes like a square root at 0, we determine the scaling limits of the eigenvalue correlation kernel near 0 in the limit when n, N tend to infinity such that n/N - 1 = O(n^{-2/3}). For each value of alpha > -1 we find a one-parameter family of limiting kernels that we describe in terms of the Hastings-McLeod solution of the Painleve II equation with parameter alpha + 1/2.
We study unitary random matrix ensembles in the critical case where the limiting mean eigenvalue density vanishes quadratically at an interior point of the support. We establish universality of the limits of the eigenvalue correlation kernel at such a critical point in a double scaling limit. The limiting kernels are constructed out of functions associated with the second Painleve equation. This extends a result of Bleher and Its for the special case of a critical quartic potential. The two main tools we use are equilibrium measures and Riemann-Hilbert problems. In our treatment of equilibrium measures we allow a negative density near the critical point, which enables us to treat all cases simultaneously. The asymptotic analysis of the Riemann-Hilbert problem is done with the Deift/Zhou steepest descent analysis. For the construction of a local parametrix at the critical point we introduce a modification of the approach of Baik, Deift, and Johansson so that we are able to satisfy the required jump properties exactly.