Decomposition of Additive Cellular Automata

Finite additive cellular automata with fixed and periodic boundary conditions are considered as endomorphisms over pattern spaces. A characterization of the nilpotent and regular parts of these endomorphisms is given in terms of their minimal polynomials. Generalized eigenspace decomposition is determined and relevant cyclic subspaces are described in terms of symmetries. As an application, the lengths and frequencies of limit cycles in the transition diagram of the automaton are calculated.