Universality for mathematical and physical systems

All physical systems in equilibrium obey the laws of thermodynamics. In other words, whatever the precise nature of the interaction between the atoms and molecules at the microscopic level, at the macroscopic level, physical systems exhibit universal behavior in the sense that they are all governed by the same laws and formulae of thermodynamics. In this paper we describe some recent history of universality ideas in physics starting with Wigner's model for the scattering of neutrons off large nuclei and show how these ideas have led mathematicians to investigate universal behavior for a variety of mathematical systems. This is true not only for systems which have a physical origin, but also for systems which arise in a purely mathematical context such as the Riemann hypothesis, and a version of the card game solitaire called patience sorting.Comment: New version contains some additional explication of the problems considered in the text and additional reference

Large n limit of Gaussian random matrices with external source, part I

We consider the random matrix ensemble with an external source \frac{1}{Z_n} e^{-n \Tr({1/2}M^2 -AM)} dM defined on $n\times n$ Hermitian matrices, where $A$ is a diagonal matrix with only two eigenvalues $\pm a$ of equal multiplicity. For the case $a > 1$, we establish the universal behavior of local eigenvalue correlations in the limit $n \to \infty$, which is known from unitarily invariant random matrix models. Thus, local eigenvalue correlations are expressed in terms of the sine kernel in the bulk and in terms of the Airy kernel at the edge of the spectrum. We use a characterization of the associated multiple Hermite polynomials by a $3 \times 3$-matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem, and the Deift/Zhou steepest descent method to analyze the Riemann-Hilbert problem in the large $n$ limit.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figure

Products and Ratios of Characteristic Polynomials of Random Hermitian Matrices

We present new and streamlined proofs of various formulae for products and ratios of characteristic polynomials of random Hermitian matrices that have appeared recently in the literature.Comment: 18 pages, LaTe