A program for finding all KMS states on the Toeplitz algebra of a higher-rank graph

Abstract

The Toeplitz algebra of a finite graph of rank $k$ carries a natural action of the torus ${\mathbb T}^k$, and composing with an embedding of ${\mathbb R}$ in ${\mathbb T}^k$ gives a dynamics on the Toeplitz algebra. For inverse temperatures larger than a critical value, the KMS states for this dynamics are well-understood, and this analysis is the first step in our program. At the critical inverse temperature, much less is known, and the second step in our program is an analysis of the KMS states at the critical value. This is the main technical contribution of the present paper. The third step shows that the problem of finding the states at inverse temperatures less than the critical value is equivalent to our original problem for a smaller graph. Then we can tackle this new problem using the same three steps, and repeat if necessary. So in principle, modulo some mild connectivity conditions on the graph, our results give a complete description of the simplex of KMS states at all inverse temperatures. We test our program on a wide range of examples, including a very general family of graphs with three strongly connected components.