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In mathematics, Racah polynomials are orthogonal polynomials named after Giulio Racah, as their orthogonality relations are equivalent to his orthogonality relations for Racah coefficients.

The Racah polynomials were first defined by Wilson (1978) and are given by

${\displaystyle p_{n}(x(x+\gamma +\delta +1))={}_{4}F_{3}\left[{\begin{matrix}-n&n+\alpha +\beta +1&-x&x+\gamma +\delta +1\\\alpha +1&\gamma +1&\beta +\delta +1\\\end{matrix}};1\right].}$

${\displaystyle \sum _{y=0}^{N}\operatorname {R} _{n}(x;\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta )\operatorname {R} _{m}(x;\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta ){\frac {\gamma +\delta +1+2y}{\gamma +\delta +1+y}}\omega _{y}=h_{n}\operatorname {\delta } _{n,m},}$^[1]

when ${\displaystyle \alpha +1=-N}$,

where ${\displaystyle \operatorname {R} }$ is the Racah polynomial,

${\displaystyle x=y(y+\gamma +\delta +1),}$

${\displaystyle \operatorname {\delta } _{n,m}}$ is the Kronecker delta function and the weight functions are

${\displaystyle \omega _{y}={\frac {(\alpha +1)_{y}(\beta +\delta +1)_{y}(\gamma +1)_{y}(\gamma +\delta +2)_{y}}{(-\alpha +\gamma +\delta +1)_{y}(-\beta +\gamma +1)_{y}(\delta +1)_{y}y!}},}$

and

${\displaystyle h_{n}={\frac {(-\beta )_{N}(\gamma +\delta +1)_{N}}{(-\beta +\gamma +1)_{N}(\delta +1)_{N}}}{\frac {(n+\alpha +\beta +1)_{n}n!}{(\alpha +\beta +2)_{2n}}}{\frac {(\alpha +\delta -\gamma +1)_{n}(\alpha -\delta +1)_{n}(\beta +1)_{n}}{(\alpha +1)_{n}(\beta +\delta +1)_{n}(\gamma +1)_{n}}},}$

${\displaystyle (\cdot )_{n}}$ is the Pochhammer symbol.

${\displaystyle \omega (x;\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta )\operatorname {R} _{n}(\lambda (x);\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta )=(\gamma +\delta +1)_{n}{\frac {\nabla ^{n}}{\nabla \lambda (x)^{n}}}\omega (x;\alpha +n,\beta +n,\gamma +n,\delta ),}$^[2]

where ${\displaystyle \nabla }$ is the backward difference operator,

${\displaystyle \lambda (x)=x(x+\gamma +\delta +1).}$

There are three generating functions for ${\displaystyle x\in \{0,1,2,...,N\}}$

when ${\displaystyle \beta +\delta +1=-N\quad }$or${\displaystyle \quad \gamma +1=-N,}$

${\displaystyle {}_{2}F_{1}(-x,-x+\alpha -\gamma -\delta ;\alpha +1;t){}_{2}F_{1}(x+\beta +\delta +1,x+\gamma +1;\beta +1;t)}$

${\displaystyle \quad =\sum _{n=0}^{N}{\frac {(\beta +\delta +1)_{n}(\gamma +1)_{n}}{(\beta +1)_{n}n!}}\operatorname {R} _{n}(\lambda (x);\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta )t^{n},}$

when ${\displaystyle \alpha +1=-N\quad }$or${\displaystyle \quad \gamma +1=-N,}$

${\displaystyle {}_{2}F_{1}(-x,-x+\beta -\gamma ;\beta +\delta +1;t){}_{2}F_{1}(x+\alpha +1,x+\gamma +1;\alpha -\delta +1;t)}$

${\displaystyle \quad =\sum _{n=0}^{N}{\frac {(\alpha +1)_{n}(\gamma +1)_{n}}{(\alpha -\delta +1)_{n}n!}}\operatorname {R} _{n}(\lambda (x);\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta )t^{n},}$

when ${\displaystyle \alpha +1=-N\quad }$or${\displaystyle \quad \beta +\delta +1=-N,}$

${\displaystyle {}_{2}F_{1}(-x,-x-\delta ;\gamma +1;t){}_{2}F_{1}(x+\alpha +1;x+\beta +\gamma +1;\alpha +\beta -\gamma +1;t)}$

${\displaystyle \quad =\sum _{n=0}^{N}{\frac {(\alpha +1)_{n}(\beta +\delta +1)_{n}}{(\alpha +\beta -\gamma +1)_{n}n!}}\operatorname {R} _{n}(\lambda (x);\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta )t^{n}.}$

When ${\displaystyle \alpha =a+b-1,\beta =c+d-1,\gamma =a+d-1,\delta =a-d,x\rightarrow -a+ix,}$

${\displaystyle \operatorname {R} _{n}(\lambda (-a+ix);a+b-1,c+d-1,a+d-1,a-d)={\frac {\operatorname {W} _{n}(x^{2};a,b,c,d)}{(a+b)_{n}(a+c)_{n}(a+d)_{n}}},}$

where ${\displaystyle \operatorname {W} }$ are Wilson polynomials.

Askey & Wilson (1979) introduced the q-Racah polynomials defined in terms of basic hypergeometric functions by

${\displaystyle p_{n}(q^{-x}+q^{x+1}cd;a,b,c,d;q)={}_{4}\phi _{3}\left[{\begin{matrix}q^{-n}&abq^{n+1}&q^{-x}&q^{x+1}cd\\aq&bdq&cq\\\end{matrix}};q;q\right].}$

They are sometimes given with changes of variables as

${\displaystyle W_{n}(x;a,b,c,N;q)={}_{4}\phi _{3}\left[{\begin{matrix}q^{-n}&abq^{n+1}&q^{-x}&cq^{x-n}\\aq&bcq&q^{-N}\\\end{matrix}};q;q\right].}$

• Askey, Richard; Wilson, James (1979), "A set of orthogonal polynomials that generalize the Racah coefficients or 6-j symbols" (PDF), SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, 10 (5): 1008–1016, doi:10.1137/0510092, ISSN 0036-1410, MR 0541097, archived from the original on September 25, 2017
• Wilson, J. (1978), Hypergeometric series recurrence relations and some new orthogonal functions, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. Wisconsin, Madison

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