Glider automata on all transitive sofic shifts

Abstract

For any infinite transitive sofic shift $X$ we construct a reversible cellular automaton (i.e. an automorphism of the shift $X$) which breaks any given finite point of the subshift into a finite collection of gliders traveling into opposing directions. This shows in addition that every infinite transitive sofic shift has a reversible CA which is sensitive with respect to all directions. As another application we prove a finitary Ryan's theorem: the automorphism group aut$(X)$ contains a two-element subset whose centralizer consists only of shift maps. We also show that in the class of $S$-gap shifts these results do not extend beyond the sofic case.

29 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems