Cumulants of the q-semicircular law, Tutte polynomials, and heaps

The q-semicircular law as introduced by Bożejko and Speicher interpolates between the Gaussian law and the semicircular law, and its moments have a combinatorial interpretation in terms of matchings and crossings. We prove that the cumulants of this law are, up to some factor, polynomials in q with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science
Main Author: Matthieu Josuat-Vergès
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science 2012-01-01
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Online Access:https://dmtcs.episciences.org/3074/pdf
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Summary:The q-semicircular law as introduced by Bożejko and Speicher interpolates between the Gaussian law and the semicircular law, and its moments have a combinatorial interpretation in terms of matchings and crossings. We prove that the cumulants of this law are, up to some factor, polynomials in q with nonnegative coefficients. This is done by showing that they are obtained by an enumeration of connected matchings, weighted by the evaluation at (1,q) of a Tutte polynomial. The two particular cases q=0 and q=2 have also alternative proofs, related with the fact that these particular evaluation of the Tutte polynomials count some orientations on graphs. Our methods also give a combinatorial model for the cumulants of the free Poisson law.
ISSN:1365-8050