Noncommutative Independence in the Infinite Braid and Symmetric Group

This is an introductory paper about our recent merge of a noncommutative de Finetti type result with representations of the infinite braid and symmetric group which allows to derive factorization properties from symmetries. We explain some of the main ideas of this approach and work out a constructive procedure to use in applications. Finally we illustrate the method by applying it to the theory of group characters.