English

Second order free cumulants: product, commutator, and anti-commutator

Operator Algebras 2025-07-29 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Given two second order free random variables aa and bb, we study the second order free cumulants of their product abab, their commutator abbaab-ba, and their anti-commutator ab+baab+ba. Let (κna)n1(\kappa_n^a)_{n\geq 1} and (κn,ma)n,m1(\kappa_{n,m}^a)_{n,m\geq 1} denote the sequence of free cumulants of first and second order, respectively, of a random variable aa in a second order non-commutative probability space (A,φ,φ2)(\mathcal{A},\varphi,\varphi^2). Given aa and bb two second order freely independent random variables, we provide formulas to compute each of the cumulants (κn,mab)n,m1(\kappa_{n,m}^{ab})_{n,m\geq 1}, (κn,mabba)n,m1(\kappa_{n,m}^{ab-ba})_{n,m\geq 1}, and (κn,mab+ba)n,m1(\kappa_{n,m}^{ab+ba})_{n,m\geq 1} in terms of the individual cumulants (κna)n1(\kappa_{n}^{a})_{n\geq 1}, (κn,ma)n,m1(\kappa_{n,m}^{a})_{n,m\geq 1}, (κnb)n1(\kappa_{n}^{b})_{n\geq 1}, and (κn,mb)n,m1(\kappa_{n,m}^{b})_{n,m\geq 1}. For n=m=1n=m=1 our formulas read: \begin{align*} \kappa_{1,1}^{ab} &= \kappa_{2}^{a}\kappa_{2}^{b} +\kappa_{1,1}^{a}(\kappa_{1}^{b})^2+\kappa_{1,1}^{b}(\kappa_{1}^{a})^2,\\ \kappa_{1,1}^{ab-ba} &= 2\kappa_{2}^{a}\kappa_{2}^{b},\\ \kappa_{1,1}^{ab+ba} &= 2\kappa_{2}^{a}\kappa_{2}^{b} +4\kappa_{1,1}^{a}(\kappa_{1}^{b})^2+4\kappa_{1,1}^{b}(\kappa_{1}^{a})^2. \end{align*} In general, our formulas express the cumulants κn,mab\kappa_{n,m}^{ab}, κn,mabba\kappa_{n,m}^{ab-ba}, and κn,mab+ba\kappa_{n,m}^{ab+ba} as sums indexed by special subsets of non-crossing partitioned permutations. The formulas for the commutator and anti-commutator where not studied before, while the formula for the product was only known in the case the where the individual second order free cumulants vanish. As an application, we compute explicitly the cumulants of the anti-commutator and product of two second order free semicircular variables.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.21031,
  title  = {Second order free cumulants: product, commutator, and anti-commutator},
  author = {Daniel Munoz George and Daniel Perales},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.21031},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

46 pages, 7 figures