Dynamics and topological entropy of 1D Greenberg–Hastings cellular automata

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the non-wandering set of one-dimensional Greenberg–Hastings cellular automaton models for excitable media with $e\geqslant 1$ excited and $r\geqslant 1$ refractory states and determine its (strictly positive) topological entropy. We show that it results from a Devaney chaotic closed invariant subset of the non-wandering set that consists of colliding and annihilating travelling waves, which is conjugate to a skew-product dynamical system of coupled shift dynamics. Moreover, we determine the remaining part of the non-wandering set explicitly as a Markov system with strictly less topological entropy that also scales differently for large $e,r$.