Factoring determinants and applications to number theory

Products of shifted characteristic polynomials, and ratios of such products, averaged over the classical compact groups are of great interest to number theorists as they model similar averages of $L$-functions in families with the same symmetry type as the compact group. We use Toeplitz and Toeplitz plus Hankel operators and the identities of Borodin–Okounkov–Case–Geronimo, and Basor–Ehrhardt to prove that, in certain cases, these unitary averages factor as polynomials into averages over the symplectic group and the orthogonal group. Building on these identities we present new proofs of the exact formulas for these averages where the “swap” terms that are characteristic of the number theoretic averages occur from the Fredholm expansions of the determinants of the appropriate Hankel operator. This is the fourth different proof of the formula for the averages of ratios of products of shifted characteristic polynomials; the other proofs are based on supersymmetry; symmetric function theory, and orthogonal polynomial methods from random matrix theory.