Anti-Powers in Infinite Words

In combinatorics of words, a concatenation of $k$ consecutive equal blocks is called a power of order $k$. In this paper we take a different point of view and define an anti-power of order $k$ as a concatenation of $k$ consecutive pairwise distinct blocks of the same length. As a main result, we show that every infinite word contains powers of any order or anti-powers of any order. That is, the existence of powers or anti-powers is an unavoidable regularity. Indeed, we prove a stronger result, which relates the density of anti-powers to the existence of a factor that occurs with arbitrary exponent. As a consequence, we show that in every aperiodic uniformly recurrent word, anti-powers of every order begin at every position. We further show that every infinite word avoiding anti-powers of order $3$ is ultimately periodic, while there exist aperiodic words avoiding anti-powers of order $4$. We also show that there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order $6$.Comment: Revision submitted to Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series

Anti-Powers in Infinite Words

In combinatorics of words, a concatenation of k consecutive equal blocks is called a power of order k. In this paper we take a different point of view and define an anti-power of order k as a concatenation of k consecutive pairwise distinct blocks of the same length. As a main result, we show that every infinite word contains powers of any order or anti-powers of any order. That is, the existence of powers or anti-powers is an unavoidable regularity. Indeed, we prove a stronger result, which relates the density of anti-powers to the existence of a factor that occurs with arbitrary exponent. From these results, we derive that at every position of an aperiodic uniformly recurrent word start anti-powers of any order. We further show that any infinite word avoiding anti-powers of order 3 is ultimately periodic, and that there exist aperiodic words avoiding anti-powers of order 4. We also show that there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order 6, and leave open the question whether there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order k for k=4,5

The number of clones determined by disjunctions of unary relations

We consider finitary relations (also known as crosses) that are definable via finite disjunctions of unary relations, i.e. subsets, taken from a fixed finite parameter set $\Gamma$. We prove that whenever $\Gamma$ contains at least one non-empty relation distinct from the full carrier set, there is a countably infinite number of polymorphism clones determined by relations that are disjunctively definable from $\Gamma$. Finally, we extend our result to finitely related polymorphism clones and countably infinite sets $\Gamma$.Comment: manuscript to be published in Theory of Computing System

Crucial and bicrucial permutations with respect to arithmetic monotone patterns

A pattern $\tau$ is a permutation, and an arithmetic occurrence of $\tau$ in (another) permutation $\pi=\pi_1\pi_2...\pi_n$ is a subsequence $\pi_{i_1}\pi_{i_2}...\pi_{i_m}$ of $\pi$ that is order isomorphic to $\tau$ where the numbers $i_1<i_2<...<i_m$ form an arithmetic progression. A permutation is $(k,\ell)$-crucial if it avoids arithmetically the patterns $12... k$ and $\ell(\ell-1)... 1$ but its extension to the right by any element does not avoid arithmetically these patterns. A $(k,\ell)$-crucial permutation that cannot be extended to the left without creating an arithmetic occurrence of $12... k$ or $\ell(\ell-1)... 1$ is called $(k,\ell)$-bicrucial. In this paper we prove that arbitrary long $(k,\ell)$-crucial and $(k,\ell)$-bicrucial permutations exist for any $k,\ell\geq 3$. Moreover, we show that the minimal length of a $(k,\ell)$-crucial permutation is $\max(k,\ell)(\min(k,\ell)-1)$, while the minimal length of a $(k,\ell)$-bicrucial permutation is at most $2\max(k,\ell)(\min(k,\ell)-1)$, again for $k,\ell\geq3$