We show that conjugacy of reversible cellular automata is undecidable, whether the conjugacy is to be performed by another reversible cellular automaton or by a general homeomorphism. This gives rise to a new family of finitely-generated groups with undecidable conjugacy problems, whose descriptions arguably do not involve any type of computation. For many automorphism groups of subshifts, as well as the group of asynchronous transducers and the homeomorphism group of the Cantor set, our result implies the existence of two elements such that every finitely-generated subgroup containing both has undecidable conjugacy problem. We say that conjugacy in these groups is eventually locally undecidable. We also prove that the Brin-Thompson group $2V$ and groups of reversible Turing machines have undecidable conjugacy problems, and show that the word problems of the automorphism group and the topological full group of every full shift are eventually locally co-NP-complete.
This paper examines two related topics: the linearization of the reversible automata of Gvaramiya and Plotkin, and the problem of finding a faithful representation of the words in a central quasigroup that respects the triality symmetry of the language of quasigroups.
We prove that the semigroup generated by a reversible Mealy automaton contains a free subsemigroup of rank two if and only if it contains an element of infinite order.
We study the class of asynchronous non-uniform cellular automata (ANUCA) over an arbitrary group universe with multiple local transition rules. We introduce the notion of stable injectivity, stable reversibility, stable post-surjectivity and investigate several dynamical properties of such automata. In particular, we establish the equivalence between reversibility, stable reversibility, and stable injectivity for ANUCA. We also prove the invertibility of several classes of injective and stably injective ANUCA. Counter-examples are given to highlight the differences between cellular automata an…
The notion of an automaton over a changing alphabet $X=(X_i)_{i\geq 1}$ is used to define and study automorphism groups of the tree $X^*$ of finite words over $X$. The concept of bi-reversibility for Mealy-type automata is extended to automata over a changing alphabet. It is proved that a non-abelian free group can be generated by a two-state bi-reversible automaton over a changing alphabet $X=(X_i)_{i\geq 1}$ if and only if $X$ is unbounded. The characterization of groups generated by a two-state bi-reversible automaton over the sequence of binary alphabets is established.
This paper addresses the torsion problem for a class of automaton semigroups, defined as semigroups of transformations induced by Mealy automata, aka letter-by-letter transducers with the same input and output alphabet. The torsion problem is undecidable for automaton semigroups in general, but is known to be solvable within the well-studied class of (semi)groups generated by invertible bounded Mealy automata. We focus on the somehow antipodal class of invertible reversible Mealy automata and prove that for a wide subclass the generated semigroup is torsion-free.
The simplest example of an infinite Burnside group arises in the class of automaton groups. However there is no known example of such a group generated by a reversible Mealy automaton. It has been proved that, for a connected automaton of size at most~3, or when the automaton is not bireversible, the generated group cannot be Burnside infinite. In this paper, we extend these results to automata with bigger stateset, proving that, if a connected reversible automaton has a prime number of states, it cannot generate an infinite Burnside group.
The class of automaton groups is a rich source of the simplest examples of infinite Burnside groups. However, there are some classes of automata that do not contain such examples. For instance, all infinite Burnside automaton groups in the literature are generated by non reversible Mealy automata and it was recently shown that 2-state invertible-reversible Mealy automata cannot generate infinite Burnside groups. Here we extend this result to connected 3-state invertible-reversible Mealy automata, using new original techniques. The results provide the first uniform method to construct elements …
We introduce a new geometric tool for analyzing groups of finite automata. To each finite automaton we associate a square complex. The square complex is covered by a product of two trees iff the automaton is bi-reversible. Using this method we give examples of free groups and of Kazhdan groups which are generated by the different states of one finite (bi-reversible) automaton. We also reproduce the theorem of Macedonska, Nekrashevych, Sushchansky, on the connection between bi-reversible automata and the commensurator of a regular tree.
Reversibility and its asymptotic counting in Picard group
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur（印度坎普尔理工学院）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali（印度科学教育研究学院莫哈利分校）；Institute of Mathematical Sciences（数学科学研究所）
We prove that a semigroup generated by a reversible two-state Mealy automaton is either finite or free of rank 2. This fact leads to the decidability of finiteness for groups generated by two-state or two-letter invertible-reversible Mealy automata and to the decidability of freeness for semigroups generated by two-state invertible-reversible Mealy automata.
The action of any group on itself by conjugation and the corresponding conjugacy relation play an important role in group theory. There have been many attempts to find notions of conjugacy in semigroups that would be useful in special classes of semigroups occurring in various areas of mathematics, such as semigroups of matrices, operator and topological semigroups, free semigroups, transition monoids for automata, semigroups given by presentations with prescribed properties, monoids of graph endomorphisms, etc. In this paper we study four notions of conjugacy for semigroups, their interconnec…
We study an abstract group of reversible Turing machines. In our model, each machine is interpreted as a homeomorphism over a space which represents a tape filled with symbols and a head carrying a state. These homeomorphisms can only modify the tape at a bounded distance around the head, change the state and move the head in a bounded way. We study three natural subgroups arising in this model: the group of finite-state automata, which generalizes the topological full groups studied in topological dynamics and the theory of orbit-equivalence; the group of oblivious Turing machines whose movem…
We show that the automorphism group of a one-dimensional full shift (the group of reversible cellular automata) does not satisfy the Tits alternative. That is, we construct a finitely-generated subgroup which is not virtually solvable yet does not contain a free group on two generators. We give constructions both in the two-sided case (spatially acting group $\Z$) and the one-sided case (spatially acting monoid $\N$, alphabet size at least eight). Lack of Tits alternative follows for several groups of symbolic (dynamical) origin: automorphism groups of two-sided one-dimensional uncountable sof…
We consider Turing machines as actions over configurations in $Σ^{\mathbb{Z}^d}$ which only change them locally around a marked position that can move and carry a particular state. In this setting we study the monoid of Turing machines and the group of reversible Turing machines. We also study two natural subgroups, namely the group of finite-state automata, which generalizes the topological full groups studied in the theory of orbit-equivalence, and the group of oblivious Turing machines whose movement is independent of tape contents, which generalizes lamplighter groups and has connections t…
We investigate the orbits of automaton semigroups and groups to obtain algorithmic and structural results, both for general automata but also for some special subclasses. First, we show that a more general version of the finiteness problem for automaton groups is undecidable. This problem is equivalent to the finiteness problem for left principal ideals in automaton semigroups generated by complete and reversible automata. Then, we look at $ω$-word (i.e. right infinite words) with a finite orbit. We show that every automaton yielding an $ω$-word with a finite orbit already yields an ultimately…
We investigate some general properties of algebraic cellular automata, i.e., cellular automata over groups whose alphabets are affine algebraic sets and which are locally defined by regular maps. When the ground field is assumed to be uncountable and algebraically closed, we prove that such cellular automata always have a closed image with respect to the prodiscrete topology on the space of configurations and that they are reversible as soon as they are bijective.
When $G$ is an arbitrary group and $V$ is a finite-dimensional vector space, it is known that every bijective linear cellular automaton $τ\colon V^G \to V^G$ is reversible and that the image of every linear cellular automaton $τ\colon V^G \to V^G$ is closed in $V^G$ for the prodiscrete topology. In this paper, we present a new proof of these two results which is based on the Mittag-Leffler lemma for projective sequences of sets. We also show that if $G$ is a non-periodic group and $V$ is an infinite-dimensional vector space, then there exist a linear cellular automaton $τ_1 \colon V^G \to V^G$…
We study the conjugacy problem in the automorphism group $Aut(T)$ of a regular rooted tree $T$ and in its subgroup $FAut(T)$ of finite-state automorphisms. We show that under the contracting condition and the finiteness of what we call the orbit-signalizer, two finite-state automorphisms are conjugate in $Aut(T)$ if and only if they are conjugate in $FAut(T)$, and that this problem is decidable. We prove that both these conditions are satisfied by bounded automorphisms and establish that the (simultaneous) conjugacy problem in the group of bounded automata is decidable.
For any group $G$ and set $A$, a cellular automaton over $G$ and $A$ is a transformation $τ: A^G \to A^G$ defined via a finite neighborhood $S \subseteq G$ (called a memory set of $τ$) and a local function $μ: A^S \to A$. In this paper, we assume that $G$ and $A$ are both finite and study various algebraic properties of the finite monoid $\text{CA}(G,A)$ consisting of all cellular automata over $G$ and $A$. Let $\text{ICA}(G;A)$ be the group of invertible cellular automata over $G$ and $A$. In the first part, using information on the conjugacy classes of subgroups of $G$, we give a detailed de…
Let $G$ be a group and let $X$ be an algebraic variety over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic zero. Denote $A=X(k)$ the set of rational points of $X$. We investigate invertible algebraic cellular automata $τ\colon A^G \to A^G$ whose local defining map is induced by some morphism of algebraic varieties $X^M \to X$ where $M$ is a finite memory. When $G$ is locally embeddable into finite groups (LEF), then we show that the inverses of reversible algebraic cellular automata are automatically algebraic cellular automata. Generalizations are also obtained for finite product Hopfian…
For a group $G$ and a finite set $A$, denote by $\text{CA}(G;A)$ the monoid of all cellular automata over $A^G$ and by $\text{ICA}(G;A)$ its group of units. We study the minimal cardinality of a generating set, known as the rank, of $\text{ICA}(G;A)$. In the first part, when $G$ is a finite group, we give upper bounds for the rank in terms of the number of conjugacy classes of subgroups of $G$. The case when $G$ is a finite cyclic group has been studied before, so here we focus on the cases when $G$ is a finite dihedral group or a finite Dedekind group. In the second part, we find a basic lowe…
For a finite group $G$ and a finite set $A$, we study various algebraic aspects of cellular automata over the configuration space $A^G$. In this situation, the set $\text{CA}(G;A)$ of all cellular automata over $A^G$ is a finite monoid whose basic algebraic properties had remained unknown. First, we investigate the structure of the group of units $\text{ICA}(G;A)$ of $\text{CA}(G;A)$. We obtain a decomposition of $\text{ICA}(G;A)$ into a direct product of wreath products of groups that depends on the numbers $α_{[H]}$ of periodic configurations for conjugacy classes $[H]$ of subgroups of $G$. …
Algebraic characterization of reversibility in the quaternionic Möbius group
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali（印度科学教育与研究学院莫哈利分校）；Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre（印度统计学院德里中心）；Kalna College（卡尔纳学院）
We study automaton groups without singular points, that is, points in the boundary for which the map that associates to each point its stabilizer, is not continuous. This is motivated by the problem of finding examples of infinite bireversible automaton groups with all trivial stabilizers in the boundary, raised by Grigorchuk and Savchuk. We show that, in general, the set of singular points has measure zero. Then we focus our attention on several classes of automata. We characterize those contracting automata generating groups without singular points, and apply this characterization to the Bas…
The knapsack problem is a classic optimisation problem that has been recently extended in the setting of groups. Its study reveals to be interesting since it provides many different behaviours, depending on the considered class of groups. In this paper we deal with groups generated by Mealy automata-a class that is often used to study group-theoretical conjectures-and prove that the knapsack problem is undecidable for this class. In a second time, we construct a graph that, if finite, provides a solution to the knapsack problem. We deduce that the knapsack problem is decidable for the so-calle…
The Nottingham group at 2 is the group of (formal) power series $t+a_2 t^2+ a_3 t^3+ \cdots$ in the variable $t$ with coefficients $a_i$ from the field with two elements, where the group operation is given by composition of power series. The depth of such a series is the largest $d\geq 1$ for which $a_2=\dots=a_d=0$. Only a handful of power series of finite order are explicitly known through a formula for their coefficients. We argue in this paper that it is advantageous to describe such series in closed computational form through automata, based on effective versions of proofs of Christol's t…
