Universality of a family of Random Matrix Ensembles with logarithmic soft-confinement potentials

Recently we introduced a family of $U(N)$ invariant Random Matrix Ensembles which is characterized by a parameter $\lambda$ describing logarithmic soft-confinement potentials $V(H) \sim [\ln H]^{(1+\lambda)} \:(\lambda>0$). We showed that we can study eigenvalue correlations of these "$\lambda$-ensembles" based on the numerical construction of the corresponding orthogonal polynomials with respect to the weight function $\exp[- (\ln x)^{1+\lambda}]$. In this work, we expand our previous work and show that: i) the eigenvalue density is given by a power-law of the form $\rho(x) \propto [\ln x]^{\lambda-1}/x$ and ii) the two-level kernel has an anomalous structure, which is characteristic of the critical ensembles. We further show that the anomalous part, or the so-called "ghost-correlation peak", is controlled by the parameter $\lambda$; decreasing $\lambda$ increases the anomaly. We also identify the two-level kernel of the $\lambda$-ensembles in the semiclassical regime, which can be written in a sinh-kernel form with more general argument that reduces to that of the critical ensembles for $\lambda=1$. Finally, we discuss the universality of the $\lambda$-ensembles, which includes Wigner-Dyson universality ($\lambda \to \infty$ limit), the uncorrelated Poisson-like behavior ($\lambda \to 0$ limit), and a critical behavior for all the intermediate $\lambda$ ($0<\lambda<\infty$) in the semiclassical regime. We also comment on the implications of our results in the context of the localization-delocalization problems as well as the $N$ dependence of the two-level kernel of the fat-tail random matrices.