Laguerre unitary ensemble 2026-10-07
The Laguerre unitary ensemble is the positive-eigenvalue ensemble with joint density proportional to , for . Integer is realized by a complex Wishart matrix. The Laguerre projection kernel expresses its correlation functions of a point process as determinants.
Choose real monic orthogonal polynomials of degree , , for on , and let
Extend each by zero to negative . The resulting functions form an orthonormal set in . Define the orthogonal polynomial projection kernel
The formula on the right is for nonnegative arguments; the kernel is zero when either argument is negative. With , the kernel evaluation matrix is . By the determinant multiplication identity and the preceding monic basis change,
Thus initially .
Use the symmetric labelled joint probability density on the full orthant. Expanding the two copies of into permutations and integrating all variables, orthonormality makes a term vanish unless the two permutations agree. Each of the surviving terms integrates to . Hence
If the eigenvalues are instead listed in increasing order on a single ordered chamber, that chamber's density is times this symmetric density. We keep the full-orthant convention throughout.
An explicit choice is in terms of the Generalized Laguerre polynomials. To verify the normalization independently, their Rodrigues formula gives
Integrating by parts times proves orthogonality to every lower-degree polynomial. The boundary terms vanish at zero and infinity for . Taking the other factor to be and using gives , where is the Gamma function. The Laguerre projection kernel is therefore
for .