Self-organization in cellular automata: A particle-based approach

Abstract

For some classes of cellular automata, we observe empirically a phenomenon of self-organization: starting from a random configuration, regular strips separated by defects appear in the space-time diagram. When there is no creation of defects, all defects have the same direction after some time. In this article, we propose to formalise this phenomenon. Starting from the notion of propagation of defect by a cellular automaton formalized in [Piv07b, Piv07a], we show that, when iterating the automaton on a random configuration, defects in one direction only remain asymptotically. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.