Reducibility of covers of AFT shifts (Q1758930)

The authors consider various types of covers for (two-sided) irreducible sofic shifts, with main emphasis on left Krieger covers. The main results of the paper are related to shifts of almost finite type (AFT), that is, shifts which can be factorized into an irreducible shift of finite type using a factor map which is one-to-one on a nontrivial open set. It is shown that the left Krieger cover of a strictly sofic irreducible AFT is reducible. Then it is deduced that the Matsumoto algebra related to this cover is simple. It is also shown that such a result is no longer true when we consider irreducible sofic shifts outside the AFT class. Similar results on reducibility are obtained with the help of past set covers, which can be defined also for one-sided sofic shifts.