The covariant functoriality of graph algebras

Abstract: In the standard category of directed graphs, graph morphisms map edges to edges. By allowing graph morphisms to map edges to finite paths (path homomorphisms of graphs), we obtain an ambient category in which we determine subcategories enjoying covariant functors to categories of algebras given by constructions of path algebras, Cohn path algebras, and Leavitt path algebras, respectively. Thus we obtain new tools to unravel homomorphisms between Leavitt path algebras and graph C*-algebras. In particular, a graph-algebraic presentation of the inclusion of the C*-algebra of a quantum real projective plane into the Toeplitz algebra allows us to determine a quantum CW-complex structure of the former. It comes as a mixed-pullback theorem where two $*$-homomorphisms are covariantly induced from path homomorphisms of graphs and the remaining two are contravariantly induced by admissible inclusions of graphs. As a main result and an application of new covariant-induction tools, we prove such a mixed-pullback theorem for arbitrary graphs whose all vertex-simple loops have exits, which substantially enlarges the scope of examples coming from noncommutative topology.