Serving both as an introduction to the subject and as a reference, this book presents the theory in elegant form and with modern concepts and notation. It covers the general theory and emphasizes the classical types of orthogonal polynomials whose weight functions are supported on standard domains. The approach is a blend of classical analysis and symmetry group theoretic methods. Finite reflection groups are used to motivate and classify symmetries of weight functions and the associated polynomials. This revised edition has been updated throughout to reflect recent developments in the field. It contains 25% new material, including two brand new chapters on orthogonal polynomials in two variables, which will be especially useful for applications, and orthogonal polynomials on the unit sphere. The most modern and complete treatment of the subject available, it will be useful to a wide audience of mathematicians and applied scientists, including physicists, chemists and engineers.

Orthogonal polynomials of several variables, approximation theory, symmetry-group methods.

Updated throughout, this revised edition contains 25% new material covering progress made in the field over the past decade.

Presenting a comprehensive theory of orthogonal polynomials in two real variables and properties of Fourier series in these polynomials, this volume also gives cases of orthogonality over a region and on a contour. The text includes the classification of differential equations which admits orthogonal polynomials as eigenfunctions and several two-dimensional analogies of classical orthogonal polynomials.

Special functions and orthogonal polynomials in particular have been around for centuries. Can you imagine mathematics without trigonometric functions, the exponential function or polynomials? In the twentieth century the emphasis was on special functions satisfying linear differential equations, but this has now been extended to difference equations, partial differential equations and non-linear differential equations. The present set of lecture notes containes seven chapters about the current state of orthogonal polynomials and special functions and gives a view on open problems and future directions. The topics are: computational methods and software for quadrature and approximation, equilibrium problems in logarithmic potential theory, discrete orthogonal polynomials and convergence of Krylov subspace methods in numerical linear algebra, orthogonal rational functions and matrix orthogonal rational functions, orthogonal polynomials in several variables (Jack polynomials) and separation of variables, a classification of finite families of orthogonal polynomials in Askey’s scheme using Leonard pairs, and non-linear special functions associated with the Painlevé equations.

This volume presents an account of some of the most important work that has been done on various research problems in the theory of polynomials of one and several variables and their applications. It is dedicated to P L Chebyshev, a leading Russian mathematician.

This volume presents an account of some of the most important work that has been done on various research problems in the theory of polynomials of one and several variables and their applications. It is dedicated to P L Chebyshev, a leading Russian mathematician.

The first modern treatment of orthogonal polynomials from the viewpoint of special functions is now available in paperback.