Quasi-factors in ergodic theory

Motivated by the notion of quasi-factor in topological dynamics, we introduce an analogous notion in the context of ergodic theory. For two processes,X andY , we haveX?Y if and only ifY has a factor which is isomorphic to a quasi-factor ofX. On the other hand, weakly mixing processes can have nontrivial quasifactors which are not w.m. We characterize those ergodic processes which admit only trivial continuous ergodic quasi-factors, and use this characterization to conclude that a process with minimal selfjoinings is of this type. From this we derive the fact that for every suchX and any ergodicY eitherX ⊥Y orY extends some symmetric product ofX.