Infinitesimal non-crossing cumulants and free probability of type B

Free probabilistic considerations of type B first appeared in a paper by Biane, Goodman and Nica in 2003. Recently, connections between type B and infinitesimal free probability were put into evidence by Belinschi and Shlyakhtenko (arXiv:0903.2721). The interplay between "type B" and "infinitesimal" is also the object of the present paper. We study infinitesimal freeness for a family of unital subalgebras A_1, ..., A_k in an infinitesimal noncommutative probability space (A, phi, phi'), and we introduce a concept of infinitesimal non-crossing cumulant functionals for (A, phi, phi'), obtained by taking a formal derivative in the formula for usual non-crossing cumulants. We prove that the infinitesimal freeness of A_1, ... A_k is equivalent to a vanishing condition for mixed cumulants; this gives the infinitesimal counterpart for a theorem of Speicher from "usual" free probability. We show that the lattices of non-crossing partitions of type B appear in the combinatorial study of (A, phi, phi'), in the formulas for infinitesimal cumulants and when describing alternating products of infinitesimally free random variables. As an application of alternating free products, we observe the infinitesimal analogue for the well-known fact that freeness is preserved under compression with a free projection. As another application, we observe the infinitesimal analogue for a well-known procedure used to construct free families of free Poisson elements. Finally, we discuss situations when the freeness of A_1, ..., A_k in (A, phi) can be naturally upgraded to infinitesimal freeness in (A, phi, phi'), for a suitable choice of a "companion functional" phi'.Comment: 38 pages, 1 figur

On the degree of rapid decay

A finitely generated group \G equipped with a word-length is said to satisfy property RD if there are $C, s\geq 0$ such that, for all non-negative integers $n$, we have $\|a\|\leq C (1+n)^s \|a\|_2$ whenever a\in\C\G is supported on elements of length at most $n$. We show that, for infinite \G, the degree $s$ is at least 1/2.Comment: 6 pages, final versio

Free probability aspect of irreducible meander systems, and some related observations about meanders

We consider the concept of irreducible meandric system introduced by Lando and Zvonkin. We place this concept in the lattice framework of NC(n). As a consequence, we show that the even generating function for irreducible meandric systems is the R-transform of XY, where X and Y are classically (commuting) independent random variables, and each of X,Y has centred semicircular distribution of variance 1. Following this point of view, we make some observations about the symmetric linear functional on polynomials which has R-transform given by the even generating function for meanders.Comment: Two new remarks in Sections 3 and 5, and an additional referenc

Spectral morphisms, K-theory, and stable ranks

We give a brief account of the interplay between spectral morphisms, K-theory, and stable ranks in the context of Banach algebras.Comment: 12 pages; to appear in the Proceedings of the Workshop on Noncommutative Geometry (Fields Institute, Toronto 2008

Multi-variable subordination distributions for free additive convolution

Let k be a positive integer and let D_k denote the space of joint distributions for k-tuples of selfadjoint elements in C*-probability space. The paper studies the concept of "subordination distribution of \mu \boxplus \nu with respect to \nu" for \mu, \nu \in D_k, where \boxplus is the operation of free additive convolution on D_k. The main tools used in this study are combinatorial properties of R-transforms for joint distributions and a related operator model, with operators acting on the full Fock space Multi-variable subordination turns out to have nice relations to a process of evolution towards \boxplus-infinite divisibility on D_k that was recently found by Belinschi and Nica (arXiv:0711.3787). Most notably, one gets better insight into a connection which this process was known to have with free Brownian motion.Comment: Minor modifications and reference added to 1st version. 34 pages, no figure

Homotopical stable ranks for Banach algebras

The connected stable rank and the general stable rank are homotopy invariants for Banach algebras, whereas the Bass stable rank and the topological stable rank should be thought of as dimensional invariants. This paper studies the two homotopical stable ranks, viz. their general properties as well as specific examples and computations. The picture that emerges is that of a strong affinity between the homotopical stable ranks, and a marked contrast with the dimensional ones.Comment: 23 pages, final versio

Unimodular graphs and Eisenstein sums

Motivated in part by combinatorial applications to certain sum-product phenomena, we introduce unimodular graphs over finite fields and, more generally, over finite valuation rings. We compute the spectrum of the unimodular graphs, by using Eisenstein sums associated to unramified extensions of such rings. We derive an estimate for the number of solutions to the restricted dot product equation $a\cdot b=r$ over a finite valuation ring. Furthermore, our spectral analysis leads to the exact value of the isoperimetric constant for half of the unimodular graphs. We also compute the spectrum of Platonic graphs over finite valuation rings, and products of such rings - e.g., $\mathbb{Z}/(N)$. In particular, we deduce an improved lower bound for the isoperimetric constant of the Platonic graph over $\mathbb{Z}/(N)$.Comment: V2: minor revisions. To appear in the Journal of Algebraic Combinatoric