A combinatorial theory of random matrices III: random walks on $\mathfrak{S}(N)$, ramified coverings and the $\mathfrak{S}(\infty)$ Yang-Mills measure

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study some asymptotics of a natural model of random ramified coverings on the disk of degree $N$. We prove that the monodromy field, called also the holonomy field, converges in probability to a non-random field as $N$ goes to infinity. In order to do so, we use the fact that the monodromy field of random uniform labelled simple ramified coverings on the disk of degree $N$ has the same law as the $\mathfrak{S}(N)$-Yang-Mills measure associated with the random walk by transposition on $\mathfrak{S}(N)$. This allows us to restrict our study to random walks on $\mathfrak{S}(N)$: we prove theorems about asymptotics of random walks on $\mathfrak{S}(N)$ in a new framework based on the geometric study of partitions and the Schur-Weyl-Jones's dualities. In particular, given a sequence of conjugacy classes $(\lambda\_N \subset \mathfrak{S}(N))\_{N \in \mathbb{N}}$, we define a notion of convergence for $(\lambda\_N)\_{N \in \mathbb{N}}$ which implies the convergence in non-commutative distribution and in $\mathcal{P}$-expectation of the $\lambda\_N$-random walk to a $\mathcal{P}$-free multiplicative L{\'e}vy process. This limiting process is shown not to be a free multiplicative L{\'e}vy process and we compute its log-cumulant functional. We give also a criterion on $(\lambda\_N)\_{N \in \mathbb{N}}$ in order to know if the limit is random or not.