English

Linear cellular automata, duality and sofic groups

Group Theory 2017-06-27 v2

Abstract

We produce for arbitrary non-amenable group GG and field KK a non-pre-injective, surjective linear cellular automaton. This answers positively Open Problem (OP-14) in Ceccherini-Silberstein and Coornaert's monograph "Cellular Automata and Groups". We also reprove in a direct manner, for linear cellular automata, the result by Capobianco, Kari and Taati that cellular automata over sofic groups are injective if and only if they are post-surjective. These results come from considerations related to matrices over group rings: we prove that a matrix's kernel and the image of its adjoint are mutual orthogonals of each other. This gives rise to a notion of "dual cellular automaton", which is pre-injective if and only if the original cellular automaton is surjective, and is injective if and only if the original cellular automaton is post-surjective.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1612.06117,
  title  = {Linear cellular automata, duality and sofic groups},
  author = {Laurent Bartholdi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.06117},
  year   = {2017}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T17:27:58.903Z