1,142 research outputs found
Decidability and Universality in Symbolic Dynamical Systems
Many different definitions of computational universality for various types of
dynamical systems have flourished since Turing's work. We propose a general
definition of universality that applies to arbitrary discrete time symbolic
dynamical systems. Universality of a system is defined as undecidability of a
model-checking problem. For Turing machines, counter machines and tag systems,
our definition coincides with the classical one. It yields, however, a new
definition for cellular automata and subshifts. Our definition is robust with
respect to initial condition, which is a desirable feature for physical
realizability.
We derive necessary conditions for undecidability and universality. For
instance, a universal system must have a sensitive point and a proper
subsystem. We conjecture that universal systems have infinite number of
subsystems. We also discuss the thesis according to which computation should
occur at the `edge of chaos' and we exhibit a universal chaotic system.Comment: 23 pages; a shorter version is submitted to conference MCU 2004 v2:
minor orthographic changes v3: section 5.2 (collatz functions) mathematically
improved v4: orthographic corrections, one reference added v5:27 pages.
Important modifications. The formalism is strengthened: temporal logic
replaced by finite automata. New results. Submitte
Universality and Decidability of Number-Conserving Cellular Automata
Number-conserving cellular automata (NCCA) are particularly interesting, both
because of their natural appearance as models of real systems, and because of
the strong restrictions that number-conservation implies. Here we extend the
definition of the property to include cellular automata with any set of states
in \Zset, and show that they can be always extended to ``usual'' NCCA with
contiguous states. We show a way to simulate any one dimensional CA through a
one dimensional NCCA, proving the existence of intrinsically universal NCCA.
Finally, we give an algorithm to decide, given a CA, if its states can be
labeled with integers to produce a NCCA, and to find this relabeling if the
answer is positive.Comment: 13 page
Bounded Languages Meet Cellular Automata with Sparse Communication
Cellular automata are one-dimensional arrays of interconnected interacting
finite automata. We investigate one of the weakest classes, the real-time
one-way cellular automata, and impose an additional restriction on their
inter-cell communication by bounding the number of allowed uses of the links
between cells. Moreover, we consider the devices as acceptors for bounded
languages in order to explore the borderline at which non-trivial decidability
problems of cellular automata classes become decidable. It is shown that even
devices with drastically reduced communication, that is, each two neighboring
cells may communicate only constantly often, accept bounded languages that are
not semilinear. If the number of communications is at least logarithmic in the
length of the input, several problems are undecidable. The same result is
obtained for classes where the total number of communications during a
computation is linearly bounded
A Graph Theory Approach for Regional Controllability of Boolean Cellular Automata
Controllability is one of the central concepts of modern control theory that
allows a good understanding of a system's behaviour. It consists in
constraining a system to reach the desired state from an initial state within a
given time interval. When the desired objective affects only a sub-region of
the domain, the control is said to be regional. The purpose of this paper is to
study a particular case of regional control using cellular automata models
since they are spatially extended systems where spatial properties can be
easily defined thanks to their intrinsic locality. We investigate the case of
boundary controls on the target region using an original approach based on
graph theory. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given based on the
Hamiltonian Circuit and strongly connected component. The controls are obtained
using a preimage approach
Descriptional complexity of cellular automata and decidability questions
We study the descriptional complexity of cellular automata (CA), a parallel model of computation. We show that between one of the simplest cellular models, the realtime-OCA. and "classical" models like deterministic finite automata (DFA) or pushdown automata (PDA), there will be savings concerning the size of description not bounded by any recursive function, a so-called nonrecursive trade-off. Furthermore, nonrecursive trade-offs are shown between some restricted classes of cellular automata. The set of valid computations of a Turing machine can be recognized by a realtime-OCA. This implies that many decidability questions are not even semi decidable for cellular automata. There is no pumping lemma and no minimization algorithm for cellular automata
Undecidable Properties of Limit Set Dynamics of Cellular Automata
Cellular Automata (CA) are discrete dynamical systems and an abstract model
of parallel computation. The limit set of a cellular automaton is its maximal
topological attractor. A well know result, due to Kari, says that all
nontrivial properties of limit sets are undecidable. In this paper we consider
properties of limit set dynamics, i.e. properties of the dynamics of Cellular
Automata restricted to their limit sets. There can be no equivalent of Kari's
Theorem for limit set dynamics. Anyway we show that there is a large class of
undecidable properties of limit set dynamics, namely all properties of limit
set dynamics which imply stability or the existence of a unique subshift
attractor. As a consequence we have that it is undecidable whether the cellular
automaton map restricted to the limit set is the identity, closing, injective,
expansive, positively expansive, transitive
On the descriptional complexity of iterative arrays
The descriptional complexity of iterative arrays (lAs) is studied. Iterative arrays are a parallel computational model with a sequential processing of the input. It is shown that lAs when compared to deterministic finite automata or pushdown automata may provide savings in size which are not bounded by any recursive function, so-called non-recursive trade-offs. Additional non-recursive trade-offs are proven to exist between lAs working in linear time and lAs working in real time. Furthermore, the descriptional complexity of lAs is compared with cellular automata (CAs) and non-recursive trade-offs are proven between two restricted classes. Finally, it is shown that many decidability questions for lAs are undecidable and not semidecidable
- …