Special functions arising from discrete Painlevé equations: A survey

This article is a survey on recent studies on special solutions of the discrete Painlevé equations, especially on hypergeometric solutions of the q-Painlevé equations. The main part of this survey is based on the joint work [K. Kajiwara, T. Masuda, M. Noumi, Y. Ohta, Y. Yamada, Hypergeometric solutions to the q-Painlevé equations, IMRN 2004 47 (2004) 2497–2521, K. Kajiwara, T. Masuda, M. Noumi, Y. Ohta, Y. Yamada, Construction of hypergeometric solutions to the q-Painlevé equations, IMRN 2005 24 (2005) 1439–1463] with Kajiwara, Masuda, Ohta and Yamada. After recalling some basic facts concerning Painlevé equations for comparison, we give an overview of the present status of studies on difference (discrete) Painlevé equations as a source of special functions.