Entry times in automata with simple defect dynamics

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a simple cellular automaton with two particles of different speeds that annihilate on contact. Following a previous work by Kurka et al., we study the asymptotic distribution, starting from a random configuration, of the waiting time before a particle crosses the central column after time n. Drawing a parallel between the behaviour of this automata on a random initial configuration and a certain random walk, we approximate this walk using a Brownian motion, and we obtain explicit results for a wide class of initial measures and other automata with similar dynamics.