Fell bundles over quasi-lattice ordered groups and $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras of compactly aligned product systems

Abstract: We define notions of semi-saturatedness and orthogonality for a Fell bundle over a quasi-lattice ordered group. We show that a compactly aligned product system of Hilbert bimodules can be naturally extended to a semi-saturated and orthogonal Fell bundle whenever it is simplifiable. Conversely, a semi-saturated and orthogonal Fell bundle is completely determined by the positive fibres and its cross sectional $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebra is isomorphic to a relative Cuntz--Pimsner algebra of a simplifiable product system of Hilbert bimodules. We show that this correspondence is part of an equivalence between bicategories and use this to generalise several results of Meyer and the author in the context of single correspondences. We apply functoriality for relative Cuntz--Pimsner algebras to study Morita equivalence between $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras attached to compactly aligned product systems over Morita equivalent $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras.