Strong Haagerup Inequalities for Free R-diagonal Elements

In this paper, we generalize Haagerup’s inequality [H] (on convolution norm in the free group) to a very general context of R-diagonal elements in a tracial von Neumann algebra; moreover, we show that in this “holomorphic” setting, the inequality is greatly improved from its originial form. We give an elementary combinatorial proof of a very special case of our main result, and then generalize these techniques. En route, we prove a number of moment and cumulant estimates for Rdiagonal elements that are of independent interest. Finally, we use our strong Haagerup inequality to prove a strong ultracontractivity theorem, generalizing and improving the one in [Bi2].