The splitting process in free probability theory

Free cumulants were introduced by Speicher as a proper analog of classical cumulants in Voiculescu's theory of free probability. The relation between free moments and free cumulants is usually described in terms of Moebius calculus over the lattice of non-crossing partitions. In this work we explore another approach to free cumulants and to their combinatorial study using a combinatorial Hopf algebra structure on the linear span of non-crossing partitions. The generating series of free moments is seen as a character on this Hopf algebra. It is characterized by solving a linear fixed point equation that relates it to the generating series of free cumulants. These phenomena are explained through a process similar to (though different from) the arborification process familiar in the theory of dynamical systems, and originating in Cayley's work

Monotone, free, and boolean cumulants: a shuffle algebra approach

The theory of cumulants is revisited in the "Rota way", that is, by following a combinatorial Hopf algebra approach. Monotone, free, and boolean cumulants are considered as infinitesimal characters over a particular combinatorial Hopf algebra. The latter is neither commutative nor cocommutative, and has an underlying unshuffle bialgebra structure which gives rise to a shuffle product on its graded dual. The moment-cumulant relations are encoded in terms of shuffle and half-shuffle exponentials. It is then shown how to express concisely monotone, free, and boolean cumulants in terms of each other using the pre-Lie Magnus expansion together with shuffle and half-shuffle logarithms.Comment: final versio

The pre-Lie structure of the time-ordered exponential

The usual time-ordering operation and the corresponding time-ordered exponential play a fundamental role in physics and applied mathematics. In this work we study a new approach to the understanding of time-ordering relying on recent progress made in the context of enveloping algebras of pre-Lie algebras. Various general formulas for pre-Lie and Rota-Baxter algebras are obtained in the process. Among others, we recover the noncommutative analog of the classical Bohnenblust-Spitzer formula, and get explicit formulae for operator products of time-ordered exponentials