Convergence of Kikuchi matrices to $\mathrm{\Gamma }$-independent and $q$-Gaussian limits

Kikuchi matrices are a family of structured matrices that were introduced to study problems involving tensors and hypergraphs. We show that, as the ambient dimension grows, dense random Kikuchi matrices have a limit described by a system of $\mathrm{\Gamma }$-independent semicircular elements. This characterizes their limiting spectral distribution and yields improved bounds on their spectral norm, a key quantity in the analysis of algorithms for Tensor PCA. Finally, we show that, in an appropriate double limit, independent Kikuchi matrices converge to the $q$-Gaussian system, another central object in noncommutative probability.