Particle-like objects are observed to propagate and interact in many
spatially extended dynamical systems. For one of the simplest classes of such
systems, one-dimensional cellular automata, we establish a rigorous upper bound
on the number of distinct products that these interactions can generate. The
upper bound is controlled by the structural complexity of the interacting
particles---a quantity which is defined here and which measures the amount of
spatio-temporal information that a particle stores. Along the way we establish
a number of properties of domains and particles that follow from the
computational mechanics analysis of cellular automata; thereby elucidating why
that approach is of general utility. The upper bound is tested against several
relatively complex domain-particle cellular automata and found to be tight.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables,
http://www.santafe.edu/projects/CompMech/papers/ub.html V2: References and
accompanying text modified, to comply with legal demands arising from
on-going intellectual property litigation among third parties. V3: Accepted
for publication in Physica D. References added and other small changes made
per referee suggestion