19,090 research outputs found
Avoiding abelian squares in partial words
AbstractErdős raised the question whether there exist infinite abelian square-free words over a given alphabet, that is, words in which no two adjacent subwords are permutations of each other. It can easily be checked that no such word exists over a three-letter alphabet. However, infinite abelian square-free words have been constructed over alphabets of sizes as small as four. In this paper, we investigate the problem of avoiding abelian squares in partial words, or sequences that may contain some holes. In particular, we give lower and upper bounds for the number of letters needed to construct infinite abelian square-free partial words with finitely or infinitely many holes. Several of our constructions are based on iterating morphisms. In the case of one hole, we prove that the minimal alphabet size is four, while in the case of more than one hole, we prove that it is five. We also investigate the number of partial words of length n with a fixed number of holes over a five-letter alphabet that avoid abelian squares and show that this number grows exponentially with n
Words with the Maximum Number of Abelian Squares
An abelian square is the concatenation of two words that are anagrams of one
another. A word of length can contain distinct factors that
are abelian squares. We study infinite words such that the number of abelian
square factors of length grows quadratically with .Comment: To appear in the proceedings of WORDS 201
Abelian-Square-Rich Words
An abelian square is the concatenation of two words that are anagrams of one
another. A word of length can contain at most distinct
factors, and there exist words of length containing distinct
abelian-square factors, that is, distinct factors that are abelian squares.
This motivates us to study infinite words such that the number of distinct
abelian-square factors of length grows quadratically with . More
precisely, we say that an infinite word is {\it abelian-square-rich} if,
for every , every factor of of length contains, on average, a number
of distinct abelian-square factors that is quadratic in ; and {\it uniformly
abelian-square-rich} if every factor of contains a number of distinct
abelian-square factors that is proportional to the square of its length. Of
course, if a word is uniformly abelian-square-rich, then it is
abelian-square-rich, but we show that the converse is not true in general. We
prove that the Thue-Morse word is uniformly abelian-square-rich and that the
function counting the number of distinct abelian-square factors of length
of the Thue-Morse word is -regular. As for Sturmian words, we prove that a
Sturmian word of angle is uniformly abelian-square-rich
if and only if the irrational has bounded partial quotients, that is,
if and only if has bounded exponent.Comment: To appear in Theoretical Computer Science. Corrected a flaw in the
proof of Proposition
A Note on Efficient Computation of All Abelian Periods in a String
We derive a simple efficient algorithm for Abelian periods knowing all
Abelian squares in a string. An efficient algorithm for the latter problem was
given by Cummings and Smyth in 1997. By the way we show an alternative
algorithm for Abelian squares. We also obtain a linear time algorithm finding
all `long' Abelian periods. The aim of the paper is a (new) reduction of the
problem of all Abelian periods to that of (already solved) all Abelian squares
which provides new insight into both connected problems
Avoidability of long -abelian repetitions
We study the avoidability of long -abelian-squares and -abelian-cubes
on binary and ternary alphabets. For , these are M\"akel\"a's questions.
We show that one cannot avoid abelian-cubes of abelian period at least in
infinite binary words, and therefore answering negatively one question from
M\"akel\"a. Then we show that one can avoid -abelian-squares of period at
least in infinite binary words and -abelian-squares of period at least 2
in infinite ternary words. Finally we study the minimum number of distinct
-abelian-squares that must appear in an infinite binary word
Ten Conferences WORDS: Open Problems and Conjectures
In connection to the development of the field of Combinatorics on Words, we
present a list of open problems and conjectures that were stated during the ten
last meetings WORDS. We wish to continually update the present document by
adding informations concerning advances in problems solving
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