Relatively independent joinings and subsystems of W*-dynamical systems

Relatively independent joinings of W*-dynamical systems are constructed. This is intimately related to subsystems of W*-dynamical systems, and therefore we also study general properties of subsystems, in particular fixed point subsystems and compact subsystems. This allows us to obtain characterizations of weak mixing and relative ergodicity, as well as of certain compact subsystems, in terms of joinings.