Free Meixner states

Free Meixner states are a class of functionals on non-commutative polynomials introduced in math.CO/0410482. They are characterized by a resolvent-type form for the generating function of their orthogonal polynomials, by a recursion relation for those polynomials, or by a second-order non-commutative differential equation satisfied by their free cumulant functional. In this paper, we construct an operator model for free Meixner states. By combinatorial methods, we also derive an operator model for their free cumulant functionals. This, in turn, allows us to construct a number of examples. Many of these examples are shown to be trivial, in the sense of being free products of functionals which depend on only a single variable, or rotations of such free products. On the other hand, the multinomial distribution is a free Meixner state and is not a product. Neither is a large class of tracial free Meixner states which are analogous to the simple quadratic exponential families in statistics.Comment: 30 page

General Convolution Identities for Bernoulli and Euler Polynomials

Using general identities for difference operators, as well as a technique of symbolic computation and tools from probability theory, we derive very general kth order (k \ge 2) convolution identities for Bernoulli and Euler polynomials. This is achieved by use of an elementary result on uniformly distributed random variables. These identities depend on k positive real parameters, and as special cases we obtain numerous known and new identities for these polynomials. In particular we show that the well-known identities of Miki and Matiyasevich for Bernoulli numbers are special cases of the same general formula.Comment: 20 page

Polynomial Triangles Revisited

A polynomial triangle is an array whose inputs are the coefficients in integral powers of a polynomial. Although polynomial coefficients have appeared in several works, there is no systematic treatise on this topic. In this paper we plan to fill this gap. We describe some aspects of these arrays, which generalize similar properties of the binomial coefficients. Some combinatorial models enumerated by polynomial coefficients, including lattice paths model, spin chain model and scores in a drawing game, are introduced. Several known binomial identities are then extended. In addition, we calculate recursively generating functions of column sequences. Interesting corollaries follow from these recurrence relations such as new formulae for the Fibonacci numbers and Hermite polynomials in terms of trinomial coefficients. Finally, properties of the entropy density function that characterizes polynomial coefficients in the thermodynamical limit are studied in details.Comment: 24 pages with 1 figure eps include