Left regular representations of Garside categories I. C*-algebras and groupoids

We initiate the study of C*-algebras and groupoids arising from left regular representations of Garside categories, a notion which originated from the study of Braid groups. Every higher rank graph is a Garside category in a natural way. We develop a general classification result for closed invariant subspaces of our groupoids as well as criteria for topological freeness and local contractiveness, properties which are relevant for the structure of the corresponding C*-algebras. Our results provide a conceptual explanation for previous results on gauge-invariant ideals of higher rank graph C*-algebras. As another application, we give a complete analysis of the ideal structures of C*-algebras generated by left regular representations of Artin-Tits monoids.