Quantifying Self-Organization in Cyclic Cellular Automata
Abstract
Cyclic cellular automata (CCA) are models of excitable media. Started from random initial conditions, they produce several different kinds of spatial structure, depending on their control parameters. We introduce new tools from information theory that let us calculate the dynamical information content of spatial random processes. This complexity measure allows us to quantitatively determine the rate of self-organization of these cellular automata, and establish the relationship between parameter values and self-organization in CCA. The method is very general and can easily be applied to other cellular automata or even digitized experimental data.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- July 2005
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.nlin/0507067
- arXiv:
- arXiv:nlin/0507067
- Bibcode:
- 2005nlin......7067R
- Keywords:
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- Nonlinear Sciences - Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems;
- Nonlinear Sciences - Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 6 figures. This was a preliminary report on the research whose final results appeared in nlin.AO/0409024. However, this report includes certain algorithmic details and discussion of related literature omitted from the paper for reasons of space