The Wigner semicircle distribution, named after the physicist Eugene Wigner, is the probability distribution supported on the interval [−R, R] the graph of whose probability density function f is a semicircle of radius R centered at (0, 0) and then suitably normalized (so that it is really a semi-ellipse):

for −R < x < R, and f(x) = 0 if x > R or x < − R.

This distribution arises as the limiting distribution of eigenvalues of many random symmetric matrices as the size of the matrix approaches infinity.

In free probability theory, the role of Wigner's semicircle distribution is analogous to that of the normal distribution in classical probability theory.

The Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind are orthogonal polynomials with respect to the Wigner semicircle distribution.

For positive integers n, the 2nth moment of this distribution is

where X is any random variable with this distribution and C_n is the nth Catalan number

so that the moments are the Catalan numbers if R = 2. (Because of symmetry, all of the odd-order moments are zero.)

In free probability theory, the role of cumulants is occupied by "free cumulants", whose relation to ordinary cumulants is simply that the role of the set of all partitions of a finite set in the theory of ordinary cumulants is replaced by the set of all noncrossing partitions of a finite set. Just the cumulants of degree more than 2 of a probability distribution are all zero if and only if the distribution is normal, so also, the free cumulants of degree more than 2 of a probability distribution are all zero if and only if the distribution is Wigner's semicircle distribution.

External links

MathWorld article on Wigner's semicircle law