Fundamental study: Directional dynamics for cellular automata: A sensitivity to initial condition approach

  • Authors:
  • Mathieu Sablik

  • Affiliations:
  • École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Unité de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées, UMR CNRS 5669 46, Allée dItalie 9364 LYON Cedex 07, France

  • Venue:
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

A cellular automaton is a continuous function F defined on a full-shift A^Z which commutes with the shift @s. Often, to study the dynamics of F one only considers implicitly @s. However, it is possible to emphasize the spatio-temporal structure produced by considering the dynamics of the ZxN-action induced by (@s,F). In this purpose we study the notion of directional dynamics. In particular, we are interested in directions of equicontinuity and expansivity, which generalize the concepts introduced by Gilman [Robert H. Gilman, Classes of linear automata, Ergodic Theory Dynam. Systems 7 (1) (1987) 105-118] and P. Kurka [Petr Kurka, Languages, equicontinuity and attractors in cellular automata, Ergodic Theory Dynam. Systems 17 (2) (1997) 417-433]. We study the sets of directions which exhibit this special kind of dynamics showing that they induce a discrete geometry in space-time diagrams.