Voiculescu's notion of asymptotic free independence is known for a large class of random matrices including independent unitary invariant matrices. This notion is extended for independent random matrices invariant in law by conjugation by permutation matrices. This fact leads naturally to an extension of free probability, formalized under the notions of traffic probability. The author first establishes this construction for random matrices and then defines the traffic distribution of random matrices, which is richer than the $^*$-distribution of free probability. The knowledge of the individual traffic distributions of independent permutation invariant families of matrices is sufficient to compute the limiting distribution of the join family. Under a factorization assumption, the author calls traffic independence the asymptotic rule that plays the role of independence with respect to traffic distributions. Wigner matrices, Haar unitary matrices and uniform permutation matrices converge in traffic distributions, a fact which yields new results on the limiting $^*$-distributions of several matrices the author can construct from them. Then the author defines the abstract traffic spaces as non commutative probability spaces with more structure. She proves that at an algebraic level, traffic independence in some sense unifies the three canonical notions of tensor, free and Boolean independence. A central limiting theorem is stated in this context, interpolating between the tensor, free and Boolean central limit theorems.

This is an introductory book on Non-Commutative Probability or Free Probability and Large Dimensional Random Matrices. Basic concepts of free probability are introduced by analogy with classical probability in a lucid and quick manner. It then develops the results on the convergence of large dimensional random matrices, with a special focus on the interesting connections to free probability. The book assumes almost no prerequisite for the most part. However, familiarity with the basic convergence concepts in probability and a bit of mathematical maturity will be helpful. Combinatorial properties of non-crossing partitions, including the Möbius function play a central role in introducing free probability. Free independence is defined via free cumulants in analogy with the way classical independence can be defined via classical cumulants. Free cumulants are introduced through the Möbius function. Free product probability spaces are constructed using free cumulants. Marginal and joint tracial convergence of large dimensional random matrices such as the Wigner, elliptic, sample covariance, cross-covariance, Toeplitz, Circulant and Hankel are discussed. Convergence of the empirical spectral distribution is discussed for symmetric matrices. Asymptotic freeness results for random matrices, including some recent ones, are discussed in detail. These clarify the structure of the limits for joint convergence of random matrices. Asymptotic freeness of independent sample covariance matrices is also demonstrated via embedding into Wigner matrices. Exercises, at advanced undergraduate and graduate level, are provided in each chapter.

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Gromov-Witten theory started as an attempt to provide a rigorous mathematical foundation for the so-called A-model topological string theory of Calabi-Yau varieties. Even though it can be defined for all the Kähler/symplectic manifolds, the theory on Calabi-Yau varieties remains the most difficult one. In fact, a great deal of techniques were developed for non-Calabi-Yau varieties during the last twenty years. These techniques have only limited bearing on the Calabi-Yau cases. In a certain sense, Calabi-Yau cases are very special too. There are two outstanding problems for the Gromov-Witten theory of Calabi-Yau varieties and they are the focus of our investigation.

We develop differential algebraic K-theory for rings of integers in number fields and we construct a cycle map from geometrized bundles of modules over such a ring to the differential algebraic K-theory. We also treat some of the foundational aspects of differential cohomology, including differential function spectra and the differential Becker-Gottlieb transfer. We then state a transfer index conjecture about the equality of the Becker-Gottlieb transfer and the analytic transfer defined by Lott. In support of this conjecture, we derive some non-trivial consequences which are provable by independent means.

This monograph provides a coherent development of operads, infinity operads, and monoidal categories, equipped with equivariant structures encoded by an action operad. A group operad is a planar operad with an action operad equivariant structure. In the first three parts of this monograph, we establish a foundation for group operads and for their higher coherent analogues called infinity group operads. Examples include planar, symmetric, braided, ribbon, and cactus operads, and their infinity analogues. For example, with the tools developed here, we observe that the coherent ribbon nerve of the universal cover of the framed little 2-disc operad is an infinity ribbon operad.In Part 4 we define general monoidal categories equipped with an action operad equivariant structure and provide a unifying treatment of coherence and strictification for them. Examples of such monoidal categories include symmetric, braided, ribbon, and coboundary monoidal categories, which naturally arise in the representation theory of quantum groups and of coboundary Hopf algebras and in the theory of crystals of finite dimensional complex reductive Lie algebras.

Manifolds with fibered cusps are a class of complete non-compact Riemannian manifolds including many examples of locally symmetric spaces of rank one. We study the spectrum of the Hodge Laplacian with coefficients in a flat bundle on a closed manifold undergoing degeneration to a manifold with fibered cusps. We obtain precise asymptotics for the resolvent, the heat kernel, and the determinant of the Laplacian. Using these asymptotics we obtain a topological description of the analytic torsion on a manifold with fibered cusps in terms of the R-torsion of the underlying manifold with boundary.