Matrix Models, Quantum Penner Action and Two-Dimensional String Theory

Random-matrix models have been intensively studied in the last few years[1]. Although the bulk of the attention has been paid to models describing dynamically triangulated random surfaces[2], and their double-scaling limits[3], it has turned out that many of the results obtained can be equivalently deduced from a far simpler class of matrix models, which moreover require no double-scaling limit. These are sometimes called "topological matrix models" because the random-matrix integral can be thought of as a generating function for certain topological invariants