18.338J/16.394J: The Mathematics of Infinite Random Matrices Essentials of Finite Random Matrix Theory

This handout provides the essential elements needed to understand finite random matrix theory. A cursory observation should reveal that the tools for infinite random matrix theory are quite different from the tools for finite random matrix theory. Nonetheless, there are significantly more published applications that use finite random matrix theory as opposed to infinite random matrix theory. Our belief is that many of the results that have been historically derived using finite random matrix theory can be reformulated and answered using infinite random matrix theory. In this sense, it is worth recognizing that in many applications it is an integral of a function of the eigenvalues that is more important that the mere distribution of the eigenvalues. For finite random matrix theory, the tools that often come into play when setting up such integrals are the Matrix Jacobians, the Joint Eigenvalue Densities and the Cauchy-Binet theorem. We describe these in subsequent sections.