Noncommutative Catalan Numbers

The goal of this paper is to introduce and study noncommutative Catalan numbersCn\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$C_n$$\end{document} which belong to the free Laurent polynomial algebra Ln\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {L}_n$$\end{document} in n generators. Our noncommutative numbers admit interesting (commutative and noncommutative) specializations, one of them related to Garsia–Haiman (q, t)-versions, another—to solving noncommutative quadratic equations. We also establish total positivity of the corresponding (noncommutative) Hankel matrices Hn\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$H_n$$\end{document} and introduce accompanying noncommutative binomial coefficients[inline-graphic not available: see fulltext].