This volume opens the world of free probability to a wide variety of readers. From its roots in the theory of operator algebras, free probability has intertwined with non-crossing partitions, random matrices, applications in wireless communications, representation theory of large groups, quantum groups, the invariant subspace problem, large deviations, subfactors, and beyond. This book puts a special emphasis on the relation of free probability to random matrices, but also touches upon the operator algebraic, combinatorial, and analytic aspects of the theory. The book serves as a combination textbook/research monograph, with self-contained chapters, exercises scattered throughout the text, and coverage of important ongoing progress of the theory. It will appeal to graduate students and all mathematicians interested in random matrices and free probability from the point of view of operator algebras, combinatorics, analytic functions, or applications in engineering and statistical physics.

Providing an introduction to current research topics in functional analysis and its applications to quantum physics, this book presents three lectures surveying recent progress and open problems. A special focus is given to the role of symmetry in non-commutative probability, in the theory of quantum groups, and in quantum physics. The first lecture presents the close connection between distributional symmetries and independence properties. The second introduces many structures (graphs, C*-algebras, discrete groups) whose quantum symmetries are much richer than their classical symmetry groups, and describes the associated quantum symmetry groups. The last lecture shows how functional analytic and geometric ideas can be used to detect and to quantify entanglement in high dimensions. The book will allow graduate students and young researchers to gain a better understanding of free probability, the theory of compact quantum groups, and applications of the theory of Banach spaces to quantum information. The latter applications will also be of interest to theoretical and mathematical physicists working in quantum theory.

This volume opens the world of free probability to a wide variety of readers. From its roots in the theory of operator algebras, free probability has intertwined with non-crossing partitions, random matrices, applications in wireless communications, representation theory of large groups, quantum groups, the invariant subspace problem, large deviations, subfactors, and beyond. This book puts a special emphasis on the relation of free probability to random matrices, but also touches upon the operator algebraic, combinatorial, and analytic aspects of the theory. The book serves as a combination textbook/research monograph, with self-contained chapters, exercises scattered throughout the text, and coverage of important ongoing progress of the theory. It will appeal to graduate students and all mathematicians interested in random matrices and free probability from the point of view of operator algebras, combinatorics, analytic functions, or applications in engineering and statistical physics.

Free Probability Theory studies a special class of 'noncommutative'random variables, which appear in the context of operators on Hilbert spaces and in one of the large random matrices. Since its emergence in the 1980s, free probability has evolved into an established field of mathematics with strong connections to other mathematical areas, such as operator algebras, classical probability theory, random matrices, combinatorics, representation theory of symmetric groups. Free probability also connects to more applied scientific fields, such as wireless communication in electrical engineering. This 2006 book gives a self-contained and comprehensive introduction to free probability theory which has its main focus on the combinatorial aspects. The volume is designed so that it can be used as a text for an introductory course (on an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level), and is also well-suited for the individual study of free probability.