Hypercontractivity for free products

In this paper, we obtain optimal time hypercontractivity bounds for the free product extension of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck semigroup acting on the Clifford algebra. Our approach is based on a central limit theorem for free products of spin matrix algebras with mixed commutation/anticommutation relations. With another use of Speicher's central limit theorem, we can also obtain the same bounds for free products of q-deformed von Neumann algebras interpolating between the fermonic and bosonic frameworks. This generalizes the work of Nelson, Gross, Carlen/Lieb and Biane. Our main application yields hypercontractivity bounds for the free Poisson semigroup acting on the group algebra of the free group F_n, uniformly in the number of generators.