Spectral decomposition and matrix-valued orthogonal polynomials

The relation between the spectral decomposition of a self-adjoint operator which is realizable as a higher order recurrence operator and matrix-valued orthogonal polynomials is investigated. A general construction of such operators from scalar-valued orthogonal polynomials is presented. Two examples of matrix-valued orthogonal polynomials with explicit orthogonality relations and three-term recurrence relation are presented, which both can be considered as $2\times 2$-matrix-valued analogues of subfamilies of Askey-Wilson polynomials.