Computing Issues of Asynchronous CA

Abstract

This work studies some aspects of the computational power of fully asynchronous cellular automata (ACA). We deal with some notions of simulation between ACA and Turing Machines. In particular, we characterize the updating sequences specifying which are “universal”, i.e., allowing a (specific family of) ACA to simulate any Turing machine on any input. We also consider the computational cost of such simulations. Finally, we deal with ACA equipped with peculiar updating sequences, namely those generated by random walks.