Medvedev degrees of
2-dimensional subshifts of finite type
Stephen G. Simpson1
Department of Mathematics
Submitted: May 1, 2007
This draft: January 16, 2009
Pennsylvania State University
Abstract:
In this paper we apply some fundamental concepts and results from
recursion theory in order to obtain an apparently new counterexample
in symbolic dynamics. Two sets

and

are said to be
Medvedev equivalent if there exist partial recursive
functionals from

into

and vice versa. The
Medvedev
degree of

is the equivalence class of

under Medvedev
equivalence. There is an extensive recursion-theoretic literature
on the lattice of Medvedev degrees of nonempty

subsets of

. This lattice is known as

. We prove that

consists precisely of the Medvedev degrees of 2-dimensional
subshifts of finite type. We use this result to obtain an infinite
collection of 2-dimensional subshifts of finite type which are, in a
certain sense, mutually incompatible.
Definition 1
Let

be a finite set of symbols. The
full 2-dimensional
shift on

is the dynamical system consisting of the natural
action of

on the compact set

. A
2-dimensional subshift is a nonempty closed set

which is invariant under the action of

. A
2-dimensional subshift

is said to be
of finite type if it
is defined by a finite set of forbidden configurations. An
interesting paper on 2-dimensional subshifts of finite type is Mozes
[
22]. A standard reference for the 1-dimensional
case is the book of Lind/Marcus [
20], which also
includes an appendix [
20, §13.10] on the
2-dimensional case.
Remark 1
In the study of 2-dimensional subshifts of finite type, it has been
useful to note that they are essentially the same thing as
tiling problems in the sense of Wang [
41].
On the one hand, if
is a finite set of Wang tiles, let
be
the set of tilings of the plane by
. Identifying
as a
subset of
, it is clear that
is a 2-dimensional
subshift of finite type. Conversely, given a 2-dimensional subshift
of finite type,
, it is easy to construct a finite set of Wang
tiles,
, such that
is recursively isomorphic to
.
Namely, let
be a positive integer which is greater than or equal
to the diameters of all of the forbidden configurations defining
, and let
be the set of
configurations which do not contain any of the forbidden
configurations. Our isomorphism of
onto
associates to
each point
a tiling
defined by
for all
and
. The adjacency rules for
are: (a)
is allowed to occur
immediately to the left of
if and only if
for all
and
, and (b)
is allowed to occur immediately below
if and only if
for all
and
.
Mozes [22,23] and
recently Hochman/Meyerovitch [17] have used the
tiling methods of Wang [41] and Robinson
[26] to construct 2-dimensional subshifts of finite
type with interesting dynamical properties.
Definition 2
If

is a 2-dimensional subshift, the
shift operators

are defined by

and

for all

and

. If

and

are 2-dimensional subshifts, a
shift morphism of

into

is a continuous function

which commutes with the
shift operators, i.e.,

and

for all

. It follows that

commutes with the action of

on

and

. A
shift
isomorphism of

onto

is a shift morphism of

one-to-one
onto

, i.e., a homeomorphism of

onto

which commutes with

and

. We say that

and

are
shift
isomorphic if there exists a shift isomorphism of

onto

.
Definition 3
Recall that two sets

and

are
Medvedev equivalent (see
Rogers [
27, §13.7] and Medvedev [
21]) if there
exist partial recursive functionals which map

into

and

into

. Also,

and

are
recursively homeomorphic if
there exists a partial recursive functional which maps

one-to-one onto

whose inverse is a partial recursive functional
which maps

one-to-one onto

. Finally,

and

are
Muchnik equivalent (see Muchnik [
24]) if (a)
each point in

is carried by some partial recursive functional to
some point in

, and (b) each point in

is carried by some
partial recursive functional to some point in

. Obviously
recursive homeomorphism implies Medvedev equivalence, and Medvedev
equivalence implies Muchnik equivalence. However, the converses do
not hold. The equivalence classes under Medvedev equivalence and
Muchnik equivalence are known as
Medvedev degrees and
Muchnik degrees respectively.
Remark 2
We shall now show that the Medvedev degree, Muchnik degree, and
recursive homeomorphism type of a 2-dimensional subshift

depend
only on the shift isomorphism type of

.
Theorem 1
All shift morphisms
are given by partial recursive
functionals. If
and
are shift isomorphic, then
and
are recursively homeomorphic, hence Medvedev equivalent, hence
Muchnik equivalent.
Proof.Let
and
be finite sets of symbols such that
and
are
subshifts of the full 2-dimensional shifts
and
respectively. Let
be a shift morphism. By
the Curtis/Hedlund/Lyndon Theorem (see Boyle
[8] or Lind/Marcus [20])
is a block code, i.e., we can find an integer
and a
projection
such that
for all
and
. In particular
is given by
a partial recursive functional. If moreover
is a shift
isomorphism of
onto
, it follows that
is a recursive
homeomorphism of
onto
. This completes the proof.
Definition 4
A closed set

is said to be

(see Rogers [
27, Chapter
15]) if it is
effectively closed, i.e.,

is the
complement of the union of a recursive sequence of basic open
neighborhoods. Let

(respectively

) be the lattice of
Medvedev degrees (respectively Muchnik degrees) of nonempty

sets

. It is known that the
lattices

and

are distributive. There is a lattice
homomorphism of

onto

obtained by mapping the Medvedev
degree of

to the Muchnik degree of

. The lattices

and

are mathematically rich and have been studied extensively.
See Alfeld [
1], Binns
[
2,
3,
4,
5],
Binns/Simpson [
6], Cenzer/Hinman [
10],
Cole/Simpson [
12], and
Simpson
[
29,
30,
31,
33,
34,
35,
36,
37,
38,
39].
Remark 3
An open problem is to characterize the recursive homeomorphism types
of 2-dimensional subshifts of finite type. Obviously every
2-dimensional subshift of finite type is a

subset of

and is therefore recursively homeomorphic to, hence of
the same Medvedev degree and Muchnik degree as, a

subset
of

. We shall now prove a theorem in the opposite
direction. Namely, every

subset of

is of
the same Medvedev degree as, hence of the same Muchnik degree as,
some 2-dimensional subshift of finite type. This characterization
of the Medvedev degrees and Muchnik degrees of 2-dimensional
subshifts of finite type appears to be new.
Theorem 2
Given a nonempty
set
, we can find
a 2-dimensional subshift of finite type which is of the same
Medvedev degree as
.
Proof.Our proof uses the tiling constructions of Robinson
[26] and Hanf [16] and Myers
[25].
Let
be a finite set of Wang tiles, and let
be a
distinguished tile in
. We write
. The tilings in
are said to be
origin-constrained. Given a
set
, Hanf [16] shows how to
construct an origin-constrained tiling system
and a
projection
such that

.
Namely,
and
are such that each origin-constrained tiling
describes a non-halting run of a particular
deterministic Turing machine
starting with
inscribed on the right half of the Turing machine tape. The
distinguished tile
represents the initial internal state of
. Since
is deterministic,
is uniformly recursive
relative to
. It follows
that
and
are recursively homeomorphic.
Now, starting with
and
as above, Myers
[25] shows how to construct a finite set of tiles
and a projection
with the following properties:
is a Robinson set of tiles.
(Unexplained terms are defined in Myers' paper
[25].)
- For each tiling
, the
-images of the
center rows of the finite boards of
are
synchronized.
- For each tiling
, the result of piecing
together the
-images of the center rows of the finite
boards of
is
for some
. It follows that
is uniformly recursive
relative to
.
- Given an origin-constrained tiling
, we can
find a tiling
such that
is the result of piecing together the
-images of the center rows of the finite boards of
.
Moreover
is uniformly recursive relative to
.
Properties 3 and 4 imply that
is Medvedev equivalent to
. Therefore,
is Medvedev equivalent to
.
Since
is a 2-dimensional subshift of finite type, our
theorem is proved.
Remark 4
Actually Hanf [
16] and Myers [
25]
deal only with

sets

of the form

separates

where

and

are recursively enumerable subsets of

.
However, their constructions work just as well for arbitrary

sets

.
Remark 5
Leonid A. Levin has kindly pointed out that our Theorem
2 was already implicit in his remark
[
19, last paragraph of Section 3]
concerning tilings of the plane with a 2-adic coordinate system.
Definition 5
Let

be the set of all 2-dimensional subshifts. For

we write

if there exists a shift morphism

. Obviously

is transitive and reflexive. We write

if

and

. Obviously

is an
equivalence relation on

. Obviously

whenever

and

are shift isomorphic, but the converse does not hold. Let

be the set of equivalence classes of

modulo

.
There is an obvious partial ordering of

induced by

.
It is easy to verify that, under this partial ordering,

is a
distributive lattice. Let

be the subset of

consisting of the 2-dimensional subshifts of finite type. It is
easy to verify that

is a sublattice of

.
Theorem 3
There is a natural lattice homomorphism of
onto
.
Namely, for each
we map the
-equivalence class
of
to the Medvedev degree of
.
Proof.The greatest lower bound and least upper bound operations in each of
the lattices
,
,
,
are given by disjoint
union and Cartesian product respectively. In particular, our
mapping of
to
is a lattice homomorphism. By
Theorem 2 this homomorphism is onto
.
Remark 6
A consequence of Theorem
3 is that there is a natural
lattice homomorphism of

onto

, obtained by mapping
the

-equivalence class of

to the Muchnik degree
of

. In particular we have a new invariant, the Muchnik degree,
associated to (shift isomorphism types of) 2-dimensional subshifts
of finite type. Obviously this invariant is qualitatively different
from other such invariants which have been considered previously in
the symbolic dynamics literature. Moreover, this new invariant is
of clear interest, inasmuch as

is known to contain many
specific, natural Muchnik degrees which are closely related to
significant topics in the foundations of mathematics. Among these
topics are algorithmic randomness [
36,
38], almost
everywhere domination [
39], reverse mathematics
[
32,
36], the hyperarithmetical hierarchy
[
12], and Kolmogorov complexity [
18].
Remark 7
We shall now present an application which is stated purely in terms
of 2-dimensional subshifts, with no reference to Medvedev degrees or
Muchnik degrees. Namely, we shall construct an infinite collection
of 2-dimensional subshifts of finite type which are, in a certain
sense, mutually incompatible.
Definition 6
If

and

are 2-dimensional subshifts on

and

symbols
respectively, let

and

be the disjoint union and
Cartesian product of

and

. These are 2-dimensional subshifts
on

and

symbols respectively. If

is a
2-dimensional subshift on

symbols, and if

are integers
such that

, let
![$X[a,b,c,d]=(X,S_1^aS_2^b,S_1^cS_2^d)$](img266.png)
.
This is a 2-dimensional subshift on

symbols.
Theorem 4
We can find an infinite collection of 2-dimensional subshifts of
finite type,
, such that for all partitions of
into two
subcollections,
and
, there is no shift morphism of
into
for any
and
.
Proof.By Binns/Simpson [6] let
,
, be
nonempty
subsets of
whose Medvedev degrees are
independent, i.e.,
is not Medvedev
reducible to
provided
. By Theorem
2, for each
let
be a 2-dimensional
subshift of finite type which is Medvedev equivalent to
. Let
be the collection
,
, and let
be
a partition of
. By induction on
and
we can easily show that neither of
and
is
Medvedev reducible to the other. Hence by Theorem
1 there is no shift morphism of
into
or
vice versa. Q.E.D.
Remark 8
In this paper we have dealt only with 2-dimensional subshifts. What
about the 1-dimensional case? Clearly Theorem
1
holds in this case. On the other hand, Theorems
2 and
3 fail, because all 1-dimensional subshifts of finite
type contain periodic points and are therefore of Medvedev degree
zero and of Muchnik degree zero. An open problem is to characterize
the Medvedev degrees, Muchnik degrees, and recursive homeomorphism
types of 1-dimensional

subshifts. In this direction
Cenzer/Dashti/King [
9] have constructed a 1-dimensional

subshift which is of nonzero Muchnik degree, hence of
nonzero Medvedev degree. We do not know whether Theorems
2,
3, and
4 hold for
1-dimensional

subshifts. We do not know whether Theorem
4 holds for 1-dimensional subshifts of finite type,
or for 1-dimensional subshifts in general.
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Medvedev degrees of
2-dimensional subshifts of finite type
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Footnotes
- ... Simpson1
- The author's research was partially
supported by the United States National Science Foundation, grant
DMS-0600823, and by the Cada and Susan Grove Mathematics
Enhancement Endowment at the Pennsylvania State University. In
addition, the author thanks Ali Dashti for telling him of the
results in Cenzer/Dashti/King [9] and Benjamin Weiss
for calling his attention to the papers of Hochman/Meyerovitch
[17] and Mozes [22].
Stephen G Simpson
2009-01-16