On dual surjunctivity and applications (Q2102724)

For a finite alphabet \(A\) and a group \(G\) the shift action of \(G\) on \(A^G\) is a topological Bernoulli shift. If any injective, continuous (that is, depending on only finitely many coordinates), and \(G\)-equivariant map \(A^G\to A^G\) is automatically surjective, then \(G\) is called surjunctive. This notion was introduced by \textit{W. H. Gottschalk} [Lect. Notes Math. 318, 120--125 (1973; Zbl 0255.54035)], who raised the question of whether all groups are surjunctive. \textit{M. Gromov} [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 1, No. 2, 109--197 (1999; Zbl 0998.14001)] showed that the groups now called sofic are surjunctive. The sofic groups certainly form a large class, to the extent that no example of a non-sofic group is known. Here a reverse of surjunctivity is discussed. It is too much to simply swap surjective and injective around in the property, as there are counterexamples for \(G=\mathbb{Z}\). The weaker notion of pre-injectivity does however produce a meaningful question: For which groups \(G\) is a surjective, continuous, \(G\)-equivariant map pre-injective? \textit{E. F. Moore} [Proc. Symp. Appl. Math. 14, 17--33 (1962; Zbl 0126.32408)] and \textit{J. Myhill} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 14, 685--686 (1963; Zbl 0126.32501)] showed this for \(G=\mathbb{Z}^d\), and this was eventually extended to all amenable groups by \textit{T. G. Ceccherini-Silberstein} et al. [Ann. Inst. Fourier 49, No. 2, 673--685 (1999; Zbl 0920.43001)]. Indeed \textit{L. Bartholdi} [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 21, No. 10, 3191--3197 (2019; Zbl 1458.37017)] showed that this characterizes amenable groups. \textit{S. Capobianco} et al. [Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 9664, 77--89 (2016; Zbl 1369.68261)] found a dual notion to that of \textit{W. H. Gottschalk} [loc. cit.], introducing a property strictly stronger than surjectivity called post-surjectivity, and showed that all sofic groups are dual surjunctive in that post-surjectivity implies pre-injectivity. This gives a strong version of the so-called ``Garden of Eden'' theorem, showing that a continuous \(G\)-equivariant map is injective if and only if it is post-surjective. All these matters are discussed here, with some of the arguments being simplified, some quantitative investigations of the properties explored, and the notion of post-surjectivity being studied for more general expansive dynamical systems including more general shifts.