Differentiation evens out zero spacings

Abstract

If f f is a polynomial with all of its roots on the real line, then the roots of the derivative f ′ f’ are more evenly spaced than the roots of f f . The same holds for a real entire function of order 1 with all its zeros on a line. In particular, we show that if f f is entire of order 1 and has sufficient regularity in its zero spacing, then under repeated differentiation the function approaches, after normalization, the cosine function. We also study polynomials with all their zeros on a circle, and we find a close analogy between the two situations. This sheds light on the spacing between zeros of the Riemann zeta-function and its connection to random matrix polynomials.