On orthogonal polynomials spanning a non-standard flag

Abstract

We survey some recent developments in the theory of orthogonal polynomials defined by differential equations. The key finding is that there exist orthogonal polynomials defined by 2nd order differential equations that fall outside the classical families of Jacobi, Laguerre, and Hermite polynomials. Unlike the classical families, these new examples, called exceptional orthogonal polynomials, feature non-standard polynomial flags; the lowest degree polynomial has degree m > 0. In this paper we review the classification of codimension m = 1 exceptional polynomials, and give a novel, compact proof of the fundamental classification theorem for codimension 1 polynomial flags. As well, we describe the mechanism or rational factorizations of 2nd order operators as the analogue of the Darboux transformation in this context. We finish with the example of higher codimension generalization of Jacobi polynomials and perform the complete analysis of parameter values for which these families have non-singular weights.