LEVEL-SPACING DISTRIBUTIONS AND THE AIRY KERNEL

Scaling level-spacing distribution functions in the ''bulk of the spec trum'' in random matrix models of N x N hermitian matrices and then go ing to the limit N --> infinity, leads to the Fredholm determinant of the sine kernel sin pi(x - y)/pi(x - y). Similarly a double scaling li mit at the ''edge of the spectrum'' leads to the Airy kernel [Ai(x)Ai' (y) - Ai'(x)Ai(y)]/(x - y). We announce analogies for this Airy kernel of the following properties of the sine kernel: the completely integr able system of PDE's found by Jimbo, Miwa, Mori and Sato; the expressi on, in the case of a single interval, of the Fredholm determinant in t erms of a Painleve transcendent; the existence of a commuting differen tial operator; and the fact that this operator can be used in the deri vation of asymptotics, for general n, of the probability that an inter val contains precisely n eigenvalues.