Almost four decades ago, Gacs, Kurdyumov, and Levin introduced three different cellular automata to investigate whether one-dimensional nonequilibrium interacting particle systems are capable of displaying phase transitions, and, as a byproduct, they introduced the density classification problem (the ability to classify arrays of symbols according to their initial density) in the cellular automata literature. Their model II became a well-known model in theoretical computer science and statistical mechanics. The other two models, however, did not receive much attention. Here we characterize the density classification performance of Gacs, Kurdyumov, and Levin's model IV, a four-state cellular automaton with three absorbing states—only two of which are attractive—by numerical simulations. We show that model IV compares well with its sibling model II in the density classification task: the additional states slow down the convergence to the majority state but confer a slight advantage in classification performance. We also show that, unexpectedly, initial states diluted in one of the nonclassifiable states are more easily classified. The performance of model IV under the influence of noise was also investigated, and we found signs of an ergodic-nonergodic phase transition at some small finite positive level of noise, although the evidence is not entirely conclusive. We set an upper bound on the critical point for the transition, if any.

• Received 16 April 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.98.012135