We consider $N\times N$ Hermitian random matrices with independent identical distributed entries. The matrix is normalized so that the average spacing between consecutive eigenvalues is of order 1/N. Under suitable assumptions on the distribution of the single matrix element, we prove that, away from the spectral edges, the density of eigenvalues concentrates around the Wigner semicircle law on energy scales $η\gg N^{-1} (\log N)^8$. Up to the logarithmic factor, this is the smallest energy scale for which the semicircle law may be valid. We also prove that for all eigenvalues away from the spectral edges, the $\ell^\infty$-norm of the corresponding eigenvectors is of order $O(N^{-1/2})$, modulo logarithmic corrections. The upper bound $O(N^{-1/2})$ implies that every eigenvector is completely delocalized, i.e., the maximum size of the components of the eigenvector is of the same order as their average size. In the Appendix, we include a lemma by J. Bourgain which removes one of our assumptions on the distribution of the matrix elements.
We consider Hermitian random matrices of the form $H = W + λV$, where $W$ is a Wigner matrix and $V$ a diagonal random matrix independent of $W$. We assume subexponential decay for the matrix entries of $W$ and we choose $λ\sim 1$ so that the eigenvalues of $W$ and $λV$ are of the same order in the bulk of the spectrum. In this paper, we prove for a large class of diagonal matrices $V$ that the local deformed semicircle law holds for $H$, which is an analogous result to the local semicircle law for Wigner matrices. We also prove complete delocalization of eigenvectors and other results about t…
These notes provide an introduction to the local semicircle law from random matrix theory, as well as some of its applications. We focus on Wigner matrices, Hermitian random matrices with independent upper-triangular entries with zero expectation and constant variance. We state and prove the local semicircle law, which says that the eigenvalue distribution of a Wigner matrix is close to Wigner's semicircle distribution, down to spectral scales containing slightly more than one eigenvalue. This local semicircle law is formulated using the Green function, whose individual entries are controlled …
We analyse the spectrum of additive finite-rank deformations of $N \times N$ Wigner matrices $H$. The spectrum of the deformed matrix undergoes a transition, associated with the creation or annihilation of an outlier, when an eigenvalue $d_i$ of the deformation crosses a critical value $\pm 1$. This transition happens on the scale $|d_i| - 1 \sim N^{-1/3}$. We allow the eigenvalues $d_i$ of the deformation to depend on $N$ under the condition $|\abs{d_i} - 1| \geq (\log N)^{C \log \log N} N^{-1/3}$. We make no assumptions on the eigenvectors of the deformation. In the limit $N \to \infty$, we …
We show that if the non Gaussian part of the cumulants of a random matrix model obey some scaling bounds in the size of the matrix, then Wigner's semicircle law holds. This result is derived using the replica technique and an analogue of the renormalisation group equation for the replica effective action. This is a transcript of a talk given at "5th Winter Workshop on Non-Perturbative Quantum Field Theory" Sophia-Antipolis, March 2017 and is based on former work in collaboration with A. Tanasa and D.L. Vu, see arXiv:1609.01873 .
We introduce kernel estimators for the semicircle law. In this first part of our general theory on the estimators, we prove the consistency and conduct simulation study to show the performance of the estimators. We also point out that Wigner's semicircle law for our new estimators and the classical empirical spectral distributions is still true when the elements of Wigner matrices don't have finite variances but are in the domain of attraction of normal law.
We consider $N\times N$ Hermitian random matrices with i.i.d. entries. The matrix is normalized so that the average spacing between consecutive eigenvalues is of order $1/N$. We study the connection between eigenvalue statistics on microscopic energy scales $η\ll1$ and (de)localization properties of the eigenvectors. Under suitable assumptions on the distribution of the single matrix elements, we first give an upper bound on the density of states on short energy scales of order $η\sim\log N/N$. We then prove that the density of states concentrates around the Wigner semicircle law on energy sca…
We prove a local law and eigenvector delocalization for general Wigner-type matrices. Our methods allow us to get the best possible interval length and optimal eigenvector delocalization in the dense case, and the first results of such kind for the sparse case down to $p=\frac{g(n)\log n}{n}$ with $g(n)\to\infty$. We specialize our results to the case of the Stochastic Block Model, and we also obtain a local law for the case when the number of classes is unbounded.
We consider random $d$-regular graphs on $N$ vertices, with degree $d$ at least $(\log N)^4$. We prove that the Green's function of the adjacency matrix and the Stieltjes transform of its empirical spectral measure are well approximated by Wigner's semicircle law, down to the optimal scale given by the typical eigenvalue spacing (up to a logarithmic correction). Aside from well-known consequences for the local eigenvalue distribution, this result implies the complete (isotropic) delocalization of all eigenvectors and a probabilistic version of quantum unique ergodicity.
We derive the joint asymptotic distribution of the outlier eigenvalues of an additively deformed Wigner matrix $H$. Our only assumptions on the deformation are that its rank be fixed and its norm bounded. Our results extend those of [The isotropic semicircle law and deformation of Wigner matrices. Preprint] by admitting overlapping outliers and by computing the joint distribution of all outliers. In particular, we give a complete description of the failure of universality first observed in [Ann. Probab. 37 (2009) 1-47; Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré Probab. Stat. 48 (1013) 107-133; Free convolution…
We study the eigenvectors of generalized Wigner matrices with subexponential entries and prove that they delocalize at the optimal rate with overwhelming probability. We also prove high probability delocalization bounds with sharp constants. Our proof uses an analysis of the eigenvector moment flow introduced by Bourgade and Yau (2017) to bound logarithmic moments of eigenvector entries for random matrices with small Gaussian components. We then extend this control to all generalized Wigner matrices by comparison arguments based on a framework of regularized eigenvectors, level repulsion, and …
We consider real symmetric and complex Hermitian random matrices with the additional symmetry $h_{xy}=h_{N-x,N-y}$. The matrix elements are independent (up to the fourfold symmetry) and not necessarily identically distributed. This ensemble naturally arises as the Fourier transform of a Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE). It also occurs as the flip matrix model - an approximation of the two-dimensional Anderson model at small disorder. We show that the density of states converges to the Wigner semicircle law despite the new symmetry type. We also prove the local version of the semicircle law o…
We extend the random characteristics approach to Wigner matrices whose entries are not required to have a normal distribution. As an application, we give a simple and fully dynamical proof of the weak local semicircle law in the bulk.
We propose a simple generalization of the matrix resolvent to a resolvent for real symmetric tensors $T\in \otimes^p \mathbb{R}^N$ of order $p\ge 3$. The tensor resolvent yields an integral representation for a class of tensor invariants and its singular locus can be understood in terms of the real eigenvalues of tensors. We then consider a random Gaussian (real symmetric) tensor. We show that in the large $N$ limit the expected resolvent has a finite cut in the complex plane and that the associated "spectral density", that is the discontinuity at the cut, obeys a universal law which generaliz…
Let $β>0$ and consider an $n$-point process $λ_1, λ_2,..., λ_n$ from Hermite $β$ ensemble on the real line $\mathbb{R}$. Dumitriu and Edelman discovered a tri-diagonal matrix model and established the global Wigner semicircle law for normalized empirical measures. In this paper we prove that the average number of states in a small interval in the bulk converges in probability when the length of the interval is larger than $\sqrt {\log n}$, i.e., local semicircle law holds. And the number of positive states in $(0,\infty)$ is proved to fluctuate normally around its mean $n/2$ with variance like…
We consider ensembles of $N \times N$ Hermitian Wigner matrices, whose entries are (up to the symmetry constraints) independent and identically distributed random variables. Assuming sufficient regularity for the probability density function of the entries, we show that the expectation of the density of states on {\it arbitrarily} small intervals converges to the semicircle law, as $N$ tends to infinity.
For a class of random matrix ensembles with correlated matrix elements, it is shown that the density of states is given by the Wigner semi-circle law. This is applied to effective Hamiltonians related to the Anderson model in dimensions greater than or equal to two.
We study ensembles of random symmetric matrices whose entries exhibit certain correlations. Examples are distributions of Curie-Weiss-type. We provide a criterion on the correlations ensuring the validity of Wigner's semicircle law for the eigenvalue distribution measure. In case of Curie-Weiss distributions this criterion applies above the critical temperature (i.e. $β<1$). We also investigate the largest eigenvalue of certain ensembles of Curie-Weiss type and find a transition in its behavior at the critical temperature.
We consider $N\times N$ Hermitian random matrices with independent identically distributed entries (Wigner matrices). The matrices are normalized so that the average spacing between consecutive eigenvalues is of order $1/N$. Under suitable assumptions on the distribution of the single matrix element, we first prove that, away from the spectral edges, the empirical density of eigenvalues concentrates around the Wigner semicircle law on energy scales $η\gg N^{-1}$. This result establishes the semicircle law on the optimal scale and it removes a logarithmic factor from our previous result \cite{E…
We show that the Dyson Brownian Motion exhibits local universality after a very short time assuming that local rigidity and level repulsion hold. These conditions are verified, hence bulk spectral universality is proven, for a large class of Wigner-like matrices, including deformed Wigner ensembles and ensembles with non-stochastic variance matrices whose limiting densities differ from the Wigner semicircle law.
We consider $N\times N$ Hermitian random matrices $H$ consisting of blocks of size $M\geq N^{6/7}$. The matrix elements are i.i.d. within the blocks, close to a Gaussian in the four moment matching sense, but their distribution varies from block to block to form a block-band structure, with an essential band width $M$. We show that the entries of the Green's function $G(z)=(H-z)^{-1}$ satisfy the local semicircle law with spectral parameter $z=E+\mathbf{i}η$ down to the real axis for any $η\gg N^{-1}$, using a combination of the supersymmetry method inspired by \cite{Sh2014} and the Green's fu…
We study the fluctuations of the matrix entries of regular functions of Wigner random matrices in the limit when the matrix size goes to infinity. In the case of the Gaussian ensembles (GOE and GUE) this problem was considered by A.Lytova and L.Pastur in J. Stat. Phys., v.134, 147-159 (2009). Our results are valid provided the off-diagonal matrix entries have finite fourth moment, the diagonal matrix entries have finite second moment, and the test functions have four continuous derivatives in a neighborhood of the support of the Wigner semicircle law.
We consider $N\times N$ Hermitian Wigner random matrices $H$ where the probability density for each matrix element is given by the density $ν(x)= e^{- U(x)}$. We prove that the eigenvalue statistics in the bulk is given by Dyson sine kernel provided that $U \in C^6(\RR)$ with at most polynomially growing derivatives and $ν(x) \le C e^{- C |x|}$ for $x$ large. The proof is based upon an approximate time reversal of the Dyson Brownian motion combined with the convergence of the eigenvalue density to the Wigner semicircle law on short scales.
We consider ensembles of Wigner matrices, whose entries are (up to the symmetry constraints) independent and identically distributed random variables. We show the convergence of the Stieltjes transform towards the Stieltjes transform of the semicircle law on optimal scales and with the optimal rate. Our bounds improve previous results, in particular from [22,10], by removing the logarithmic corrections. As applications, we establish the convergence of the eigenvalue counting functions with the rate $(\log N)/N$ and the rigidity of the eigenvalues of Wigner matrices on the same scale. These bou…
Consider $N\times N$ hermitian or symmetric random matrices $H$ with independent entries, where the distribution of the $(i,j)$ matrix element is given by the probability measure $ν_{ij}$ with zero expectation and with variance $σ_{ij}^2$. We assume that the variances satisfy the normalization condition $\sum_{i} σ^2_{ij} = 1$ for all $j$ and that there is a positive constant $c$ such that $c\le N σ_{ij}^2 \le c^{-1}$. We further assume that the probability distributions $ν_{ij}$ have a uniform subexponential decay. We prove that the Stieltjes transform of the empirical eigenvalue distribution…
We study the normalized eigenvalue counting measure dσof matrices of long-range percolation model. These are (2n+1)\times (2n+1) random real symmetric matrices H=\{H(i,j)\}_{i,j} whose elements are independent random variables taking zero value with probability 1-ψ[(i-j)/b], b\in \mathbb{R}^{+}, where ψis an even positive function ψ(t)\le{1} vanishing at infinity. It is shown that if the third moment of \sqrt{b}H(i,j), i\leq{j} is uniformly bounded then the measure dσ:=dσ_{n,b} weakly converges in probability in the limit n,b\to\infty, b=o(n) to the semicircle (or Wigner) distribution. The pro…
In this paper we consider $N \times N$ real generalized Wigner matrices whose entries are only assumed to have finite $(2 + \varepsilon)$-th moment for some fixed, but arbitrarily small, $\varepsilon > 0$. We show that the Stieltjes transforms $m_N (z)$ of these matrices satisfy a weak local semicircle law on the nearly smallest possible scale, when $η= \Im (z)$ is almost of order $N^{-1}$. As a consequence, we establish bulk universality for local spectral statistics of these matrices at fixed energy levels, both in terms of eigenvalue gap distributions and correlation functions, meaning that…
We consider the ensemble of adjacency matrices of Erdős-Rényi random graphs, that is, graphs on $N$ vertices where every edge is chosen independently and with probability $p\equiv p(N)$. We rescale the matrix so that its bulk eigenvalues are of order one. We prove that, as long as $pN\to\infty$ (with a speed at least logarithmic in $N$), the density of eigenvalues of the Erdős-Rényi ensemble is given by the Wigner semicircle law for spectral windows of length larger than $N^{-1}$ (up to logarithmic corrections). As a consequence, all eigenvectors are proved to be completely delocalized in the …
It is a classical result of Wigner that for an hermitian matrix with independent entries on and above the diagonal, the mean empirical eigenvalue distribution converges weakly to the semicircle law as matrix size tends to infinity. In this paper, we prove analogs of Wigner's theorem for random matrices taken from all infinitesimal versions of classical symmetric spaces. This is a class of models which contains those studied by Wigner and Dyson, along with seven others arising in condensed matter physics. Like Wigner's, our results are universal in that they only depend on certain assumptions a…
We analyze the expectation value of observables in a scalar theory on the fuzzy two sphere, represented as a generalized hermitian matrix model. We calculate explicitly the form of the expectation values in the large-N limit and demonstrate that, for any single kind of field (matrix), the distribution of its eigenvalues is still a Wigner semicircle but with a renormalized radius. For observables involving more than one type of matrix we obtain a new distribution corresponding to correlated Wigner semicircles.
We study the spectral properties of the dilute Wigner random real symmetric n-dimensional matrices H such that the entries H(i,j) take zero value with probability 1-p/n. We prove that under rather general conditions on the probability distribution of H(i,j) the semicircle law is valid for the dilute Wigner ensemble in the limit of infinite n and p. In the second part of the paper we study the leading term of the correlation function of the resolvent G(z) of H with large enough Im z in the limit of infinite n and p such that 3/5 log n <log p < log n. We show that this leading term, when conside…
In this paper, we study the complex Wigner matrices $M_n=\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}W_n$ whose eigenvalues are typically in the interval $[-2,2]$. Let $λ_1\leq λ_2...\leqλ_n$ be the ordered eigenvalues of $M_n$. Under the assumption of four matching moments with the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble(GUE), for test function $f$ 4-times continuously differentiable on an open interval including $[-2,2]$, we establish central limit theorems for two types of partial linear statistics of the eigenvalues. The first type is defined with a threshold $u$ in the bulk of the Wigner semicircle law as $\mathcal{A}_n[f; u]=\…
We consider $N\times N$ symmetric or hermitian random matrices with independent, identically distributed entries where the probability distribution for each matrix element is given by a measure $ν$ with a subexponential decay. We prove that the local eigenvalue statistics in the bulk of the spectrum for these matrices coincide with those of the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) and the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE), respectively, in the limit $N\to \infty$. Our approach is based on the study of the Dyson Brownian motion via a related new dynamics, the local relaxation flow. We also show tha…
Consider $N\times N$ Hermitian or symmetric random matrices $H$ where the distribution of the $(i,j)$ matrix element is given by a probability measure $ν_{ij}$ with a subexponential decay. Let $σ_{ij}^2$ be the variance for the probability measure $ν_{ij}$ with the normalization property that $\sum_{i} σ^2_{ij} = 1$ for all $j$. Under essentially the only condition that $c\le N σ_{ij}^2 \le c^{-1}$ for some constant $c>0$, we prove that, in the limit $N \to \infty$, the eigenvalue spacing statistics of $H$ in the bulk of the spectrum coincide with those of the Gaussian unitary or orthogonal en…
The universality for the eigenvalue spacing statistics of generalized Wigner matrices was established in our previous work \cite{EYY} under certain conditions on the probability distributions of the matrix elements. A major class of probability measures excluded in \cite{EYY} are the Bernoulli measures. In this paper, we extend the universality result of \cite{EYY} to include the Bernoulli measures so that the only restrictions on the probability distributions of the matrix elements are the subexponential decay and the normalization condition that the variances in each row sum up to one. The n…
Recently, T. and M. Shcherbina proved a pointwise semicircle law for the density of states of one-dimensional Gaussian band matrices of large bandwidth. The main step of their proof is a new method to study the spectral properties of non-self-adjoint operators in the semiclassical regime. The method is applied to a transfer operator constructed from the supersymmetric integral representation for the density of states. We present a simpler proof of a slightly upgraded version of the semicircle law, which requires only standard semiclassical arguments and some peculiar elementary computations. T…
We consider asymptotics of orthogonal polynomial ensembles, in the macroscopic and mesoscopic scales. We prove both global and local laws of large numbers (analogous to the recently proven local semicircle law for Wigner matrices) under fairly weak conditions on the underlying measure $μ$. Our main tools are a general concentration inequality for determinantal point processes with a kernel that is a self-adjoint projection, and a strengthening of the Nevai condition from the theory of orthogonal polynomials.
This paper studies the delocalized regime of an ultrametric random operator whose independent entries have variances decaying in a suitable hierarchical metric on $\mathbb{N}$. When the decay-rate of the off-diagonal variances is sufficiently slow, we prove that the spectral measures are uniformly $θ$-Hölder continuous for all $θ\in (0,1)$. In finite volumes, we prove that the corresponding ultrametric random matrices have completely extended eigenfunctions and that the local eigenvalue statistics converge in the Wigner-Dyson-Mehta universality class.
We study the universality of spectral statistics of large random matrices. We consider $N\times N$ symmetric, hermitian or quaternion self-dual random matrices with independent, identically distributed entries (Wigner matrices) where the probability distribution for each matrix element is given by a measure $ν$ with a subexponential decay. Our main result is that the correlation functions of the local eigenvalue statistics in the bulk of the spectrum coincide with those of the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE), the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE) and the Gaussian Symplectic Ensemble (GSE), re…
By applying the supersymmetric approach we rigorously prove smoothness of the averaged density of states for a three dimensional random band matrix ensemble, in the limit of infinite volume and fixed band width. We also prove that the resulting expression for the density of states coincides with the Wigner semicircle with a precision $1/W^2$, for $W$ large but finite.
We consider a general class of random matrices whose entries are centred random variables, independent up to a symmetry constraint. We establish precise high-probability bounds on the averages of arbitrary monomials in the resolvent matrix entries. Our results generalize the previous results of [5,16,17] which constituted a key step in the proof of the local semicircle law with optimal error bound in mean-field random matrix models. Our bounds apply to random band matrices, and improve previous estimates from order 2 to order 4 in the cases relevant for applications. In particular, they lead t…
We study the special case of $n\times n$ 1D Gaussian Hermitian random band matrices, when the covariance of the elements is determined by the matrix $J=(-W^2\triangle+1)^{-1}$. Assuming that $n\ge CW\log W\gg 1$, we prove that the averaged density of states coincides with the Wigner semicircle law up to the correction of order $W^{-1}$.
For random matrix ensembles with non-gaussian matrix elements that may exhibit some correlations, it is shown that centered traces of polynomials in the matrix converge in distribution to a Gaussian process whose covariance matrix is diagonal in the basis of Chebyshev polynomials. The proof is combinatorial and adapts Wigner's argument showing the convergence of the density of states to the semicircle law.
Consider a random matrix of the form $W_n = M_n + D_n$, where $M_n$ is a Wigner matrix and $D_n$ is a real deterministic diagonal matrix ($D_n$ is commonly referred to as an external source in the mathematical physics literature). We study the universality of the local eigenvalue statistics of $W_n$ for a general class of Wigner matrices $M_n$ and diagonal matrices $D_n$. Unlike the setting of many recent results concerning universality, the global semicircle law fails for this model. However, we can still obtain the universal sine kernel formula for the correlation functions. This demonstrate…
We consider the real eigenvalues of an $(N \times N)$ real elliptic Ginibre matrix whose entries are correlated through a non-Hermiticity parameter $τ_N\in [0,1]$. In the almost-Hermitian regime where $1-τ_N=Θ(N^{-1})$, we obtain the large-$N$ expansion of the mean and the variance of the number of the real eigenvalues. Furthermore, we derive the limiting empirical distributions of the real eigenvalues, which interpolate the Wigner semicircle law and the uniform distribution, the restriction of the elliptic law on the real axis. Our proofs are based on the skew-orthogonal polynomial representa…
We survey recent mathematical results about the spectrum of random band matrices. We start by exposing the Erd{\H o}s-Schlein-Yau dynamic approach, its application to Wigner matrices, and extension to other mean-field models. We then introduce random band matrices and the problem of their Anderson transition. We finally describe a method to obtain delocalization and universality in some sparse regimes, highlighting the role of quantum unique ergodicity.
The Wigner-Gaudin-Mehta-Dyson conjecture asserts that the local eigenvalue statistics of large random matrices exhibit universal behavior depending only on the symmetry class of the matrix ensemble. For invariant matrix models, the eigenvalue distributions are given by a log-gas with inverse temperature $β= 1, 2, 4$, corresponding to the orthogonal, unitary and symplectic ensembles. For $β\not \in \{1, 2, 4\}$, there is no matrix model behind this model, but the statistical physics interpretation of the log-gas is still valid for all $β> 0$. The universality conjecture for invariant ensembles …
We have calculated the joint probability distribution function for random reverse-cyclic matrices and shown that it is related to an N-body exactly solvable model. We refer to this well-known model potential as a screened harmonic oscillator. The connection enables us to obtain all the correlations among the particle positions moving in a screened harmonic potential. The density of nontrivial eigenvalues of this ensemble is found to be of the Wigner form and admits a hole at the origin, in contrast to the semicircle law of the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of random matrices. The spacing distri…
We review the application of the notion of local convergence on locally finite randomly rooted graphs, known as Benjamini-Schramm convergence, to the calculation of the global eigenvalue density of random matrices from the beta-Gaussian and beta-Laguerre ensembles. By regarding a random matrix as the weighted adjacency matrix of a graph, and choosing the root of such a graph with uniform probability, one can use the Benjamini-Schramm limit to produce the spectral measure of the adjacency operator of the limiting graph. We illustrate how the Wigner semicircle law and the Marchenko-Pastur law ar…
We consider a two dimensional random band matrix ensemble, in the limit of infinite volume and fixed but large band width $W$. For this model we rigorously prove smoothness of the averaged density of states. We also prove that the resulting expression coincides with Wigner's semicircle law with a precision $W^{-2+δ},$ where $δ\to 0$ when $W\to \infty.$ The proof uses the supersymmetric approach and extends results by Disertori, Pinson and Spencer from three to two dimensions.
We consider large Hermitian matrices whose entries are defined by evaluating the exponential function along orbits of the skew-shift $\binom{j}{2} ω+jy+x \mod 1$ for irrational $ω$. We prove that the eigenvalue distribution of these matrices converges to the corresponding distribution from random matrix theory on the global scale, namely, the Wigner semicircle law for square matrices and the Marchenko-Pastur law for rectangular matrices. The results evidence the quasi-random nature of the skew-shift dynamics which was observed in other contexts by Bourgain-Goldstein-Schlag and Rudnick-Sarnak-Z…
Eugene Wigner's revolutionary vision predicted that the energy levels of large complex quantum systems exhibit a universal behavior: the statistics of energy gaps depend only on the basic symmetry type of the model. Simplified models of Wigner's thesis have recently become mathematically accessible. For mean field models represented by large random matrices with independent entries, the celebrated Wigner-Dyson-Gaudin-Mehta (WDGM) conjecture asserts that the local eigenvalue statistics are universal. For invariant matrix models, the eigenvalue distributions are given by a log-gas with potential…
