The Limiting Spectral Measure for Ensembles of Symmetric Block Circulant Matrices

Given an ensemble of N×N random matrices, a natural question to ask is whether or not the empirical spectral measures of typical matrices converge to a limiting spectral measure as N→∞. While this has been proved for many thin patterned ensembles sitting inside all real symmetric matrices, frequently there is no nice closed form expression for the limiting measure. Further, current theorems provide few pictures of transitions between ensembles. We consider the ensemble of symmetric m-block circulant matrices with entries i.i.d.r.v. These matrices have toroidal diagonals periodic of period m. We view m as a “dial” we can “turn” from the thin ensemble of symmetric circulant matrices, whose limiting eigenvalue density is a Gaussian, to all real symmetric matrices, whose limiting eigenvalue density is a semi-circle. The limiting eigenvalue densities fm show a visually stunning convergence to the semi-circle as m→∞, which we prove.