Countable sofic shifts with a periodic direction (Q2195570)

In multidimensional symbolic dynamics, it is shown in [\textit{A. Desai}, Indag. Math., New Ser. 17, No. 3, 353--359 (2006; Zbl 1104.37006)] that each sofic shift has SFT covers whose entropy is arbitrarily close to its own. The equal entropy cover problem, that is, whether equal entropy covers always exist, is still open. In this paper, the author considers a variant of the equal entropy cover problem, namely to understand whether all multidimensional sofic shifts with countably many configurations have SFT covers with countably many configurations. He finds a negative answer by presenting several explicit counterexamples. The author also formulates three necessary conditions, one geometric and two computational, for the existence of a countable SFT cover, and proves that they are sufficient for the class of shift spaces whose horizontal rows come from a one-dimensional countable sofic shift. The author finishes the paper with two open problems, asking whether the conditions are sufficient in general, and whether the assumption of periodicity can be removed.