On Sushchansky p-groups

We study Sushchansky p-groups. We recall the original definition and translate it into the language of automata groups. The original actions of Sushchansky groups on p-ary tree are not level-transitive and we describe their orbit trees. This allows us to simplify the definition and prove that these groups admit faithful level-transitive actions on the same tree. Certain branch structures in their self-similar closures are established. We provide the connection with, so-called, G groups that shows that all Sushchansky groups have intermediate growth and allows to obtain an upper bound on their period growth functions.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

No Tits alternative for cellular automata

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 sofic shifts, automorphism groups of multidimensional subshifts of finite type with positive entropy and dense minimal points, automorphism groups of full shifts over non-periodic groups, and the mapping class groups of two-sided one-dimensional transitive SFTs. We also show that the classical Tits alternative applies to one-dimensional (multi-track) reversible linear cellular automata over a finite field. </p

A Garden of Eden theorem for Anosov diffeomorphisms on tori

Let $f$ be an Anosov diffeomorphism of the $n$-dimensional torus ${\mathbb{T}}^n$ and $\tau$ a continuous self-mapping of ${\mathbb{T}}^n$ commuting with $f$. We prove that $\tau$ is surjective if and only if the restriction of $\tau$ to each homoclinicity class of $f$ is injective.Comment: 9 page

Iterated Monodromy Groups of Quadratic Polynomials, I

We describe the iterated monodromy groups associated with post-critically finite quadratic polynomials, and explicit their connection to the `kneading sequence' of the polynomial. We then give recursive presentations by generators and relations for these groups, and study some of their properties, like torsion and `branchness'.Comment: 18 pages, 3 EPS figure