Spreading of Damage in Deterministic Cellular Automata as a Percolation Problem

Abstract
We show that damage spreading in a wide class of deterministic cellular automata (i.e. "legal" ones) can be seen as a growth phenomenon on a network of elements constructed from the rule of the original cellular automation. The chaotic state of the automation is related to a percolating state of this network. Numerical studies of several different cellular automata show that the percolation threshold of this network, as determined by a burning algorithm, coincides with the onset of chaos.