Periodic points for onto cellular automata

Abstract

Let φ be a one-dimensional surjective cellular automaton map. We prove that if φ is a closing map, then the configurations which are both spatially and temporally periodic are dense. (If φ is not a closing map, then we do not know whether the temporally periodic configurations must be dense.) The results are special cases of results for shifts of finite type, and the proofs use symbolic dynamical techniques.