Abstract

We consider the Turing Machine as a dynamical system and we study a particular partition projection of it. In this way, we define a language (a subshift) associated to each machine. The classical definition of Turing Machines over a one-dimensional tape is generalized to allow for a tape in the form of a Cayley Graph. We study the complexity of the language of a machine in terms of realtime recognition by putting it in relation with the structure of its tape. In this way, we find a large set of realtime subshifts some of which are proved not to be deterministic in realtime. Sofic subshifts of this class correspond to machines that cannot make arbitrarily large tours. We prove that these machines always have an ultimately periodic behavior when starting with a periodic initial configuration, and this result is proved for any Cayley Graph. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.