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Large deviations of the largest eigenvalue for deformed GOE/GUE random matrices via replica

Statistical Mechanics 2025-10-14 v2 Mathematical Physics math.MP Probability

Abstract

We study the probability distribution function P(λ)P(\lambda) of the largest eigenvalue λmax\lambda_{\rm max} of N×NN \times N random matrices of the form H+VH + V, where HH belongs to the GOE/GUE ensemble and VV is a full rank deterministic diagonal perturbation. This model is related to spherical spin glasses and semi-discrete directed polymers. In the large NN limit, using the replica method introduced in Ref. \cite{TrivializationUs2014}, we obtain the rate function L(λ){\cal L}(\lambda) which describes the upper large deviation tail P(λ)eβNL(λ)P(\lambda) \sim e^{- \beta N {\cal L}(\lambda) }. We also obtain the moment generating function eNsλmaxeNϕ(s)\langle e^{N s {\lambda}_{\max} } \rangle \sim e^{N \phi(s)} and the overlap of the optimal eigenvector with the perturbation VV. For suitable VV, a transition generically occurs in the rate functions. For the GUE it has a direct interpretation as a localisation transition for tilted directed polymers with competing columnar and point disorder. Although in a different form, our results are consistent with those obtained recently by Mc Kenna in \cite{McKenna2021}. Finally, we consider briefly the quadratic optimisation problem in presence of an additional random field and obtain its large deviation rate function, although only within the replica symmetric phase.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.12148,
  title  = {Large deviations of the largest eigenvalue for deformed GOE/GUE random matrices via replica},
  author = {Pierre Le Doussal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.12148},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

32 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:22:00.669Z