The functoriality of moves on graphs and the extended covariant functoriality of graph algebras

Abstract

Combinatorics of graphs is a very powerful tool to unravel various properties of graph algebras. In particular, isomorphisms between graph algebras are often implemented by moves between their graphs. In this paper, we make these combinatorial methods functorial, and show that collapsing an out-split graph to the original graph and transforming a graph to a shifted graph can be implemented by admissible graph homomorphisms and admissible path homomorphisms, respectively. To include the inverses of such isomorphisms, we introduce a new category of graphs where morphisms are given as regular homomorphisms of graph inverse semigroups. This new category admits a covariant functor to the category of C*-algebras and $*$-homomorphisms which extends the known covariant functor from the category of graphs and admissible path homomorphisms.