Periodic configurations of subshifts on groups

Abstract: We study the density of periodic configurations for shift spaces defined on (the Cayley graph of) a finitely generated group. We prove that in the case of a full shift on a residually finite group and in that of a group shift space on an abelian group, the periodic configurations are dense. In the one-dimensional case we prove the density for irreducible sofic shifts. In connection with this we study the surjunctivity of cellular automata and local selfmappings. Some related decision problems for shift spaces of finite type are also investigated.