Periodic solutions of one-dimensional cellular automata with random rules

Abstract

We study cellular automata with randomly selected rules. Our setting are two-neighbor rules with a large number $n$ of states. The main quantity we analyze is the asymptotic probability, as $n \to \infty$, that the random rule has a periodic solution with given spatial and temporal periods. We prove that this limiting probability is non-trivial when the spatial and temporal periods are confined to a finite range. The main tool we use is the Chen-Stein method for Poisson approximation. The limiting probability distribution of the smallest temporal period for a given spatial period is deduced as a corollary and relevant empirical simulations are presented.