Rigidity of the Hamburger and Stieltjes moment sequences

Abstract: This paper aims at finding conditions on a Hamburger or Stieltjes moment sequence, under which the change of at most a finite number of its entries produces another sequence of the same type. It turns out that a moment sequence allows all small enough variations of this kind precisely when it is indeterminate. We also show that a determinate moment sequence has the finite index of determinacy if and only if the corresponding finite number of its entries can be changed in a certain way.