Principal angles between random subspaces and polynomials in two free projections

Abstract

We use the geometric concept of principal angles between subspaces to compute the noncommutative distribution of an expression involving two free projections. For example, this allows to simplify a formula by Fevrier-Mastnak-Nica-Szpojankowski about the free Bernoulli anticommutator. We also derive economically an explicit formula for the free additive convolution of Bernoulli distributions. As a byproduct, we observe the remarkable fact that the principal angles between random half-dimensional subspaces are asymptotically distributed according to the uniform measure.