The Ellis semigroup of certain constant-length substitutions

In this article, we calculate the Ellis semigroup of a certain class of constant-length substitutions. This generalizes a result of Haddad and Johnson [IP cluster points, idempotents, and recurrent sequences. Topology Proc.22 (1997) 213–226] from the binary case to substitutions over arbitrarily large finite alphabets. Moreover, we provide a class of counterexamples to one of the propositions in their paper, which is central to the proof of their main theorem. We give an alternative approach to their result, which centers on the properties of the Ellis semigroup. To do this, we also show a new way to construct an almost automorphic–isometric tower to the maximal equicontinuous factor of these systems, which gives a more particular approach than the one given by Dekking [The spectrum of dynamical systems arising from substitutions of constant length. Z. Wahrscheinlichkeitstheor. Verw. Geb.41(3) (1977/78) 221–239].