English

Hirschman-Widder densities

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2022-04-19 v2 Numerical Analysis Numerical Analysis Probability

Abstract

Hirschman and Widder introduced a class of P\'olya frequency functions given by linear combinations of one-sided exponential functions. The members of this class are probability densities, and the class is closed under convolution but not under pointwise multiplication. We show that, generically, a polynomial function of such a density is a P\'olya frequency function only if the polynomial is a homothety, and also identify a subclass for which each positive-integer power is a P\'olya frequency function. We further demonstrate connections between the Maclaurin coefficients, the moments of these densities, and the recovery of the density from finitely many moments, via Schur polynomials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.02129,
  title  = {Hirschman-Widder densities},
  author = {Alexander Belton and Dominique Guillot and Apoorva Khare and Mihai Putinar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.02129},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

32 pages, no figures. Numerous small additions, including Proposition 2.9, as well as Section 3 and other remarks connecting Hirschman-Widder densities to orbital integrals. Final version, to appear in Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis

R2 v1 2026-06-23T21:50:47.377Z