Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2024
Let G be a group and let V be an algebraic variety over an algebraically closed field K. Let A denote the set of K-points of V. We introduce algebraic sofic subshifts ${\Sigma \subset A^G}$ and study endomorphisms
$\tau \colon \Sigma \to \Sigma $. We generalize several results for dynamical invariant sets and nilpotency of
$\tau $ that are well known for finite alphabet cellular automata. Under mild assumptions, we prove that
$\tau $ is nilpotent if and only if its limit set, that is, the intersection of the images of its iterates, is a singleton. If moreover G is infinite, finitely generated and
$\Sigma $ is topologically mixing, we show that
$\tau $ is nilpotent if and only if its limit set consists of periodic configurations and has a finite set of alphabet values.