English

Minimality, transitivity and sensitivity of non-uniform cellular automata

Dynamical Systems 2026-05-22 v1

Abstract

Every transitive cellular automaton (CA) is sensitive to initial conditions. We study this implication in the more general context of non-uniform cellular automata (NUCA) with finitely many different local update rules assigned to cells. We construct a two-dimensional NUCA that is minimal -- and hence transitive -- but that is not sensitive to initial conditions. The construction is based on an odometer NUCA on {0,1,2}N\{0,1,2\}^\mathbb{N} which is nearly uniform in the sense that only the first cell uses a different local rule. Then we show that if the assignment of local rules in the cells is recurrent then transitivity implies sensitivity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.22762,
  title  = {Minimality, transitivity and sensitivity of non-uniform cellular automata},
  author = {Supreeti Kamilya and Jarkko Kari and Katariina Paturi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.22762},
  year   = {2026}
}