## Global eigenvalue distribution of matrices defined by the skew-shift

Series
Math Physics Seminar
Time
Thursday, April 9, 2020 - 3:00pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/900271747
Speaker
Marius Lemm – Harvard University – mlemm@math.harvard.edu
Organizer

Please Note: The seminar is held in BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/900271747

A central question in ergodic theory is whether sequences obtained by sampling along the orbits of a given dynamical system behave similarly to sequences of i.i.d. random variables. Here we consider this question from a spectral-theoretic perspective. Specifically, we study large Hermitian matrices whose entries are defined by evaluating the exponential function along orbits of the skew-shift on the 2-torus with irrational frequency. We prove that their global eigenvalue distribution converges to the Wigner semicircle law, a hallmark of random matrix statistics, which evidences the quasi-random nature of the skew-shift dynamics. This is joint work with Arka Adhikari and Horng-Tzer Yau.