Pseudoisotropic random walks on free groups and semigroups (Q1175670)

The author presents a method to derive limit theorems (such as the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem, the law of the iterated logarithm) for the growth of certain random walks on free groups and semigroups. The method relies on the corresponding theorems for polynomial hypergroups. The advantages of the method are that straightforward explicit calculations of the parameters of the limit laws are possible and that the moment conditions imposed are very weak. Furthermore, extensions to walks with non-identically distributed increments are possible. The disadvantage is that the results cannot be extended to arbitrary free groups and semigroups. From the introduction: ``In Section 1 we introduce pseudoisotropic random walks on free groups, formulate the associated limit theorems and give explicit formulas for expectation and variance of these random walks. Section 2 then contains the proofs of the results of Section 1 that are based on a reduction of the problem to limit theorems for random walks on polynomial hypergroups. A central step of this reduction is valid in a more general situation for random walks on discrete hypergroups.'' In Section 3 corresponding results for a class of discrete semigroups are proved and Section 4 deals with the question to what free semigroups the method can be applied. This paper is related to works by \textit{P. M. Soardi} [Math. Z. 200, No. 3, 313-325 (1989; Zbl 0676.60012)], \textit{L. Gallardo} [Adv. Appl. Probab. 16, 293-323 (1984; Zbl 0542.60071)] and others as well as previous papers by the author [e.g., J. Theor. Probab. 3, No. 2, 245-266 (1990; Zbl 0719.60010)].