Characteristic functions of $p$-adic integral operators

Let $Pin Bbb Q_p[x,y]$, $sin Bbb C$ with sufficiently large real part, and consider the integral operator $ (A_{P,s}f)(y):=frac{1}{1-p^{-1}}int_{Bbb Z_p}|P(x,y)|^sf(x) |dx| $ on $L^2(Bbb Z_p)$. We show that if $P$ is homogeneous then for each character $chi$ of $Bbb Z_p^times$ the characteristic function $det(1-uA_{P,s,chi})$ of the restriction $A_{P,s,chi}$ of $A_{P,s}$ to the eigenspace $L^2(Bbb Z_p)_chi$ is the $q$-Wronskian of a set of solutions of a (possibly confluent) $q$-hypergeometric equation. In particular, the nonzero eigenvalues of $A_{P,s,chi}$ are the reciprocals of the zeros of such $q$-Wronskian.