Quadratic subproduct systems, free products, and their C*-algebras

Motivated by the interplay between quadratic algebras, noncommutative geometry, and operator theory, we introduce the notion of quadratic subproduct systems of Hilbert spaces. Specifically, we study the subproduct systems induced by a finite number of complex quadratic polynomials in noncommuting variables, and describe their Toeplitz and Cuntz--Pimsner algebras. Inspired by the theory of graded associative algebras, we define a free product operation in the category of subproduct systems and show that this corresponds to the reduced free product of the Toeplitz algebras. Finally, we obtain results about the K-theory of the Toeplitz and Cuntz--Pimsner algebras of a large class of quadratic subproduct systems.