Gluing topological graph C*-algebras

Abstract: We introduce regular closed subgraphs of Katsura's topological graphs and use them to generalize the notion of an adjunction space from topology. Our construction attaches a topological graph onto another via a regular factor map. In our main theorem, we prove that under suitable assumptions the C*-algebra of the adjunction graph is a pullback of the C*-algebras of the topological graphs being glued. It generalizes (and slightly improves) the pushout-to-pullback theorem proved in the context of discrete directed graphs by the third author and P. M. Hajac. Our result applied to homeomorphism C*-algebras recovers a special case of the well-known result stating that pullbacks of $\mathbb{Z}$-C*-algebras induce pullbacks of the respective crossed product C*-algebras. Furthermore, we show that the C*-algebras of odd-dimensional quantum balls of Hong and Szyma\'nski (which are known not to be graph C*-algebras) are topological graph C*-algebras and we recover the pullback structure of C*-algebras of odd-dimensional quantum spheres by gluing the topological graphs associated to the C*-algebras of the corresponding odd-dimensional quantum balls.