By a free modified symmetric quantum group one means any element of the one-parameter sequence of compact matrix quantum groups defined by Banica and Speicher in [BanSp09]. Each is a free counterpart of the modified symmetric group of the corresponding dimension .
Given , the free modified symmetric quantum group is the compact matrix quantum group where organizes the generators of the (unital) universal C*-algebra
where is the complex conjugate of and the transpose, where is the identity -matrix and where is the unit of the universal -algebra.
The definition of is often summarized by saying that it is the compact -matrix quantum group whose fundamental corepresentation matrix is magic'.
The fundamental corepresentation matrix of is in particular orthogonal. Hence, is a compact quantum subgroup of the free orthogonal quantum group .
If denotes the closed two-sided ideal of generated by the relations for any , then is isomorphic to the -algebra of continuous functions on the modified symmetric group , the latter interpreted as the subgroup of given by signed permutation matrices. Hence, is a compact quantum supergroup of .
The free modified symmetric quantum groups are an easy family of compact matrix quantum groups, i.e., the intertwiner spaces of their corepresentation categories are induced by a category of partitions. More precisely, it is the category of non-crossing partitions of even size that induces the corepresentation categories of . Its canonical generating set is .