The two-fermion relativistic wave equations of Constraint Theory in the Pauli-Schr\"odinger form

The two-fermion relativistic wave equations of Constraint Theory are reduced, after expressing the components of the $4\times 4$ matrix wave function in terms of one of the $2\times 2$ components, to a single equation of the Pauli-Schr\"odinger type, valid for all sectors of quantum numbers. The potentials that are present belong to the general classes of scalar, pseudoscalar and vector interactions and are calculable in perturbation theory from Feynman diagrams. In the limit when one of the masses becomes infinite, the equation reduces to the two-component form of the one-particle Dirac equation with external static potentials. The Hamiltonian, to order $1/c^2$, reproduces most of the known theoretical results obtained by other methods. The gauge invariance of the wave equation is checked, to that order, in the case of QED. The role of the c.m. energy dependence of the relativistic interquark confining potential is emphasized and the structure of the Hamiltonian, to order $1/c^2$, corresponding to confining scalar potentials, is displayed.Comment: 49 pages, REVTEX, 2 figures (available from the authors), preprint IPNO/TH 94-5 and LPTHE 94/1

Tur\'an type inequalities for Tricomi confluent hypergeometric functions

Some sharp two-sided Tur\'an type inequalities for parabolic cylinder functions and Tricomi confluent hypergeometric functions are deduced. The proofs are based on integral representations for quotients of parabolic cylinder functions and Tricomi confluent hypergeometric functions, which arise in the study of the infinite divisibility of the Fisher-Snedecor F distribution. Moroever, some complete monotonicity results are given concerning Tur\'an determinants of Tricomi confluent hypergeometric functions. These complement and improve some of the results of Ismail and Laforgia [23].Comment: 20 page

Spectral Analysis of Certain Schr\"odinger Operators

The $J$-matrix method is extended to difference and $q$-difference operators and is applied to several explicit differential, difference, $q$-difference and second order Askey-Wilson type operators. The spectrum and the spectral measures are discussed in each case and the corresponding eigenfunction expansion is written down explicitly in most cases. In some cases we encounter new orthogonal polynomials with explicit three term recurrence relations where nothing is known about their explicit representations or orthogonality measures. Each model we analyze is a discrete quantum mechanical model in the sense of Odake and Sasaki [J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 44 (2011), 353001, 47 pages]

Classes of Bivariate Orthogonal Polynomials

We introduce a class of orthogonal polynomials in two variables which generalizes the disc polynomials and the 2-$D$ Hermite polynomials. We identify certain interesting members of this class including a one variable generalization of the 2-$D$ Hermite polynomials and a two variable extension of the Zernike or disc polynomials. We also give $q$-analogues of all these extensions. In each case in addition to generating functions and three term recursions we provide raising and lowering operators and show that the polynomials are eigenfunctions of second-order partial differential or $q$-difference operators