Gauge symmetries play a fundamental role in Physics, as they provide a mathematical justification for the fundamental forces. Usually, one starts from a non-interactive theory which governs "matter", and features a global symmetry. One then extends the theory so as make the global symmetry into a local one (a.k.a gauge-invariance). We formalise a discrete counterpart of this process, known as gauge extension, within the Computer Science framework of Cellular Automata (CA). We prove that the CA which admit a relative gauge extension are exactly the globally symmetric ones (a.k.a the colour-blind). We prove that any CA admits a non-relative gauge extension. Both constructions yield universal gauge-invariant CA, but the latter allows for a first example where the gauge extension mediates interactions within the initial CA.
@InProceedings{arrighi_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2021.9, author = {Arrighi, Pablo and Costes, Marin and Eon, Nathana\"{e}l}, title = {{Universal Gauge-Invariant Cellular Automata}}, booktitle = {46th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2021)}, pages = {9:1--9:14}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-201-3}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2021}, volume = {202}, editor = {Bonchi, Filippo and Puglisi, Simon J.}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2021.9}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-144490}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2021.9}, annote = {Keywords: Cellular automata, Gauge-invariance, Universality} }