Characterization of Amalgamated Free Blocks of a Graph von Neumann Algebra

We identify two noncommutative structures naturally associated with countable directed graphs. They are formulated in the language of operators on Hilbert spaces. If G is a countable directed graphs with its vertex set V(G) and its edge set E(G), then we associate partial isometries to the edges in E(G) and projections to the vertices in V(G). We construct a corresponding von Neumann algebra as a groupoid crossed product algebra of an arbitrary fixed von Neumann algebra M and the graph groupoid induced by G, via a graph-representation (or a groupoid action) α. Graph groupoids are well-determined (categorial) groupoids. The graph groupoid of G has its binary operation, called admissibility. This has concrete local parts , for all e ∈ E(G). We characterize of , induced by the local parts of , for all e ∈ E(G). We then characterize all amalgamated free blocks of . They are chracterized by well-known von Neumann algebras: the classical group crossed product algebras , and certain subalgebras (M) of operator-valued matricial algebra . This shows that graph von Neumann algebras identify the key properties of graph groupoids. Received: December 20, 2006. Revised: March 07, 2007. Accepted: March 13, 2007.