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Inhomogeneous Circular Law for Correlated Matrices

We consider non-Hermitian random matrices $X \in \mathbb{C}^{n \times n}$ with general decaying correlations between their entries. For large $n$, the empirical spectral distribution is well approximated by a deterministic density, expressed in terms of the solution to a system of two coupled non-linear $n \times n$ matrix equations. This density is interpreted as the Brown measure of a linear combination of free circular elements with matrix coefficients on a non-commutative probability space. It is radially symmetric, real analytic in the radial variable and strictly positive on a disk around the origin in the complex plane with a discontinuous drop to zero at the edge. The radius of the disk is given explicitly in terms of the covariances of the entries of $X$. We show convergence down to local spectral scales just slightly above the typical eigenvalue spacing with an optimal rate of convergence.