Moments, Hankel determinants, orthogonal polynomials, Motzkin paths, and continued fractions

Previously we described all finite-dimensional random algebras with faithful states. In this post we will describe states on the infinite-dimensional -algebra . Along the way we will run into and connect some beautiful and classical mathematical objects.

A special case of part of the following discussion can be found in an old post on the Catalan numbers.

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Some countability proofs

Theorem: The set of finite sequences of elements of a countable set is countable.

I like this result because it specializes to several other basic countability results: for example, it implies that countable unions, finite products, and the set of finite subsets of countable sets are countable. I know several proofs of this result and I am honestly curious which ones people prefer.

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The Catalan numbers, regular languages, and orthogonal polynomials

I’ve been inspired by The Unapologetic Mathematician (and his pages and pages of archives!) to post more often, at least for the remainder of the summer. So here is a circle of ideas I’ve been playing with for some time.

Let be the ordinary generating function for the ordered rooted trees on vertices (essentially we ignore the root as a vertex). This is one of the familiar definitions of the Catalan numbers. From a species perspective, ordered rooted trees are defined by the functional equation

.

The generating function describes the species of sequences. So what this definition means is that, after tossing out the root, an ordered rooted tree is equivalent to a sequence of ordered rooted trees (counting their roots) in the obvious way; the roots of these trees are precisely the neighbors of the original root. Multiplying out gets us a quadratic equation we can use to find the usual closed form of , but we can instead recursively apply the above to obtain the beautiful continued fraction

.

Today’s discussion will center around this identity and some of its consequences.

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