Limiting spectral distribution for non-Hermitian random matrices with a variance profile

Nicholas Cook, Walid Hachem, Jamal Najim, David Renfrew

Published 2016-12-13Version 1

For each $n$, let $A_n=(\sigma_{ij})$ be an $n\times n$ deterministic matrix and let $X_n=(X_{ij})$ be an $n\times n$ random matrix with i.i.d. centered entries of unit variance. We are interested in the asymptotic behavior of the empirical spectral distribution $\mu_n^Y$ of the rescaled entry-wise product \[ Y_n = \left(\frac1{\sqrt{n}} \sigma_{ij}X_{ij}\right). \] For our main result, we provide a deterministic sequence of probability measures $\mu_n$, each described by a family of Master Equations, such that the difference $\mu^Y_n - \mu_n$ converges weakly in probability to the zero measure. A key feature of our results is to allow some of the entries $\sigma_{ij}$ to vanish, provided that the standard deviation profiles $A_n$ satisfy a certain quantitative irreducibility property. Examples are also provided where $\mu_n^Y$ converges to a genuine limit. As an application, we extend the circular law to a class of random matrices whose variance profile is doubly stochastic.