Patterned sparse random matrices: A moment approach

We consider four specific n x n sparse patterned random matrices, namely the Symmetric Circulant, Reverse Circulant, Toeplitz and the Hankel matrices. The entries are assumed to be Bernoulli with success probability p(n) such that np(n) -> xi with 0 < xi < infinity. We use the moment approach to show that the expected empirical spectral distribution (EESD) converges weakly for all these sparse matrices. Unlike the Sparse Wigner matrices, here the random empirical spectral distribution (ESD) converges weakly to a random distribution. This weak convergence is only in the distribution sense. We give explicit description of the random limits of the ESD for Reverse Circulant and Circulant matrices. As in the non-sparse case, explicit description of the limits appears to be difficult to obtain in the Toeplitz and Hankel cases. We provide some properties of these limits. We then study the behavior of the largest eigenvalue of these matrices. We prove that for the Reverse Circulant and Symmetric Circulant matrices the limit distribution of the largest eigenvalue is a multiple of the Poisson. For Toeplitz and Hankel matrices we show that the non-degenerate limit distribution exists, but again it does not seem to be easy to obtain any explicit description.