Cut-off phenomenon for random walks on free orthogonal quantum groups (Q2312679)

The study of cut-off phenomena for random walks, well-established in the classical case [\textit{P. Diaconis} and \textit{M. Shahshahani}, Contemp. Math. 50, 183--195 (1986; Zbl 0586.60012)], in the context of quantum groups, was initiated in a recent PhD thesis of J. P. McCarthy. The reviewed paper for the first time exhibits concrete, natural examples of cut-off for central quantum random walks on infinite compact quantum groups, in particular, on free orthogonal and free permutation groups. Perhaps surprisingly, the estimates for the quantum version of the uniform plane Kac walk on the orthogonal group turn out to have a similar form to these for its classical counterpart [\textit{B. Hough} and \textit{Y. Jiang}, Ann. Probab. 45, No. 4, 2248--2308 (2017; Zbl 1401.60134)]: the cut-off appears at \(N \log N/2(1- \cos \theta)\) where \(\theta\) represents the angle of the rotation. The main tools applied by the author are the knowledge of the representation theory of the relevant quantum groups, together with explicit asymptotic behaviour of the Chebyshev polynomials. Some other examples are also discussed.