English

Large deviations for random hives and the spectrum of the sum of two random matrices

Probability 2026-03-24 v4

Abstract

Suppose α,β\alpha, \beta are Lipschitz strongly concave functions from [0,1][0, 1] to R\mathbb{R} and γ\gamma is a concave function from [0,1][0, 1] to R\mathbb{R}, such that α(0)=γ(0)=0\alpha(0) = \gamma(0) = 0, and α(1)=β(0)=0\alpha(1) = \beta(0) = 0 and β(1)=γ(1)=0.\beta(1) = \gamma(1) = 0. For an n×nn \times n Hermitian matrix WW, let spec(W)spec(W) denote the vector in Rn\mathbb{R}^n whose coordinates are the eigenvalues of WW listed in non-increasing order. Let λ=α\lambda = \partial^- \alpha, μ=β\mu = \partial^- \beta on (0,1](0, 1] and ν=γ,\nu = \partial^- \gamma, at all points of (0,1](0, 1], where \partial^- is the left derivative, which is monotonically decreasing. Let λn(i):=n2(α(in)α(i1n))\lambda_n(i) := n^2(\alpha(\frac{i}{n})-\alpha(\frac{i-1}{n})), for i[n]i \in [n], and similarly, μn(i):=n2(β(in)β(i1n))\mu_n(i) := n^2(\beta(\frac{i}{n})-\beta(\frac{i-1}{n})), and νn(i):=n2(γ(in)γ(i1n))\nu_n(i) := n^2(\gamma(\frac{i}{n})-\gamma(\frac{i-1}{n})). Let Xn,YnX_n, Y_n be independent random Hermitian matrices from unitarily invariant distributions with spectra λn\lambda_n, μn\mu_n respectively. We define norm I\|\cdot\|_\mathcal{I} to correspond in a certain way to the sup norm of an antiderivative. For suitable λ\lambda and μ\mu, we prove that the following limit exists. \begin{equation} \lim\limits_{n \rightarrow \infty}\frac{\ln \mathbb{P}\left[\|spec(X_n + Y_n) - \nu_n\|_{\mathcal{I}} < n^2 \epsilon\right]}{n^2}.\end{equation} We interpret this limit in terms of the surface tension σ\sigma of continuum limits of the discrete hives defined by Knutson and Tao.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2111.00421,
  title  = {Large deviations for random hives and the spectrum of the sum of two random matrices},
  author = {Hariharan Narayanan and Scott Sheffield},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.00421},
  year   = {2026}
}