A -analogue of the 9- symbols and their orthogonality

Abstract: We introduce a -analogue of Wigner’s 9- symbols following the notational scheme used by Wilson in identifying the 6- symbols with Racah polynomials, which eventually led Askey and Wilson to obtain a -analogue of them, namely, the -Racah polynomials. Most importantly, we prove the orthogonality of our analogues in complete generality, as well as derive an explicit polynomial expression for these new functions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]