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Asymptotic zero behavior of Laguerre polynomials with negative parameter

We consider Laguerre polynomials $L_n^{(α_n)}(nz)$ with varying negative parameters $α_n$, such that the limit $A = -\lim_n α_n/n$ exists and belongs to $(0,1)$. For $A > 1$, it is known that the zeros accumulate along an open contour in the complex plane. For every $A \in (0,1)$, we describe a one-parameter family of possible limit sets of the zeros. Under the condition that the limit $r= - \lim_n \frac{1}{n} \log \dist(α_n, \mathbb Z)$ exists, we show that the zeros accumulate on $Γ_r \cup [β_1,β_2]$ with $β_1$ and $β_2$ only depending on $A$. For $r \in [0,\infty)$, $Γ_r$ is a closed loop encircling the origin, which for $r = +\infty$, reduces to the origin. This shows a great sensitivity of the zeros to $α_n$'s proximity to the integers. We use a Riemann-Hilbert formulation for the Laguerre polynomials, together with the steepest descent method of Deift and Zhou to obtain asymptotics for the polynomials, from which the zero behavior follows.