Life, death, new species and children from a "Quantum Game of Life" (1902.07834v1)

Abstract: The classical "game of life" (GOL) due to Conway is a famous mathematical game constructed as a two-dimensional cellular automaton in which each cell is either alive or dead. A set of evolutionary rules determines whether a cell dies, survives or is born at each generation based on its local environment. The game of life is interesting because complexity emerges from simple rules and mimics real life in that a cell flourishes only if the environment is "just right" producing a breadth of life-like behavior including multi-cellular lifeforms. Results are presented from a quantum adaptation of the GOL which assigns a qubit to each cell which then evolves according to modified evolutionary rules. Computer simulation reveals remarkable evolutionary complexity that is distinct from the classical GOL and which mimics aspects of quantum biological processes and holds promise for the realistic simulation of species population dynamics. Liveness emerges as a probability density with universal statistical properties dependent solely on the evolutionary rules. New species of quantum lifeform are found. One quantum lifeform is shown to act as a seed to produce children, one or more classical and/or quantum lifeforms, classical oscillators, a liveness probability density or death with outcomes highly sensitive to the initial state. We observe the emergence of chaos and scaling phenomena making the quantum game of life an exciting prospect for further exploration as a model for life-like behaviors.