48,927 research outputs found

    On the combinatorics of finite words

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    AbstractIn this paper we consider a combinatorial method for the analysis of finite words recently introduced in Colosimo and de Luca (Special factors in biological strings, preprint 97/42, Dipt. Matematica, Univ. di Roma) for the study of biological macromolecules. The method is based on the analysis of (right) special factors of a given word. A factor u of a word w is special if there exist at least two occurrences of the factor u in w followed on the right by two distinct letters. We show that in the combinatorics of finite words two parameters play an essential role. The first, denoted by R, represents the minimal integer such that there do not exist special factors of w of length R. The second, that we denote by K, is the minimal length of a factor of w which cannot be extended on the right in a factor of w. Some new results are proved. In particular, a new characterization in terms of special factors and of R and K is given for the set PER of all words w having two periods p and q which are coprimes and such that ¦w¦ = p + q − 2

    An Equivalence Relation on A Set of Words of Finite Length

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    In this work, we study several equivalence relations induced from the partitions of the sets of words of finite length. We have results on words over finite fields extending the work of Bacher (2002, Europ. J. Combinatorics, {\bf 23}, 141-147). Cardinalities of its equivalence classes and explicit relationships between two words are determined. Moreover, we deal with words of finite length over the ring Z/NZ\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z} where NN is a positive integer. We have arithmetic results parallel to Bacher's.Comment: 16 page

    Repetitions in beta-integers

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    Classical crystals are solid materials containing arbitrarily long periodic repetitions of a single motif. In this paper, we study the maximal possible repetition of the same motif occurring in beta-integers -- one dimensional models of quasicrystals. We are interested in beta-integers realizing only a finite number of distinct distances between neighboring elements. In such a case, the problem may be reformulated in terms of combinatorics on words as a study of the index of infinite words coding beta-integers. We will solve a particular case for beta being a quadratic non-simple Parry number.Comment: 11 page

    Transition Property For Cube-Free Words

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    We study cube-free words over arbitrary non-unary finite alphabets and prove the following structural property: for every pair (u,v)(u,v) of dd-ary cube-free words, if uu can be infinitely extended to the right and vv can be infinitely extended to the left respecting the cube-freeness property, then there exists a "transition" word ww over the same alphabet such that uwvuwv is cube free. The crucial case is the case of the binary alphabet, analyzed in the central part of the paper. The obtained "transition property", together with the developed technique, allowed us to solve cube-free versions of three old open problems by Restivo and Salemi. Besides, it has some further implications for combinatorics on words; e.g., it implies the existence of infinite cube-free words of very big subword (factor) complexity.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

    A characterization of fine words over a finite alphabet

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    To any infinite word w over a finite alphabet A we can associate two infinite words min(w) and max(w) such that any prefix of min(w) (resp. max(w)) is the lexicographically smallest (resp. greatest) amongst the factors of w of the same length. We say that an infinite word w over A is "fine" if there exists an infinite word u such that, for any lexicographic order, min(w) = au where a = min(A). In this paper, we characterize fine words; specifically, we prove that an infinite word w is fine if and only if w is either a "strict episturmian word" or a strict "skew episturmian word''. This characterization generalizes a recent result of G. Pirillo, who proved that a fine word over a 2-letter alphabet is either an (aperiodic) Sturmian word, or an ultimately periodic (but not periodic) infinite word, all of whose factors are (finite) Sturmian.Comment: 16 pages; presented at the conference on "Combinatorics, Automata and Number Theory", Liege, Belgium, May 8-19, 2006 (to appear in a special issue of Theoretical Computer Science

    THREE COMPLEXITY FUNCTIONS

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    International audienceFor an extensive range of infinite words, and the associated symbolic dynamical systems, we compute, together with the usual language complexity function counting the finite words, the minimal and maximal complexity functions we get by replacing finite words by finite patterns, or words with holes. Given a language L on a finite alphabet A, the complexity function p L (n) counts for every n the number of factors of length n of L; this is a very useful notion, both inside word combinatorics and for the study of symbolic dynamical systems, see for example the survey [7]; of particular interest are the infinite words which are determined by the complexity of their language, those words for which p L (n) ≤ n for at least one n are ultimately periodic [15], while the Sturmian words, of complexity n + 1 for all n, are natural codings of rotations, see [6, 16], or Chapter 6 of [17], and Section 4 below. Note that the complexity is exponential when the language has positive topological entropy, and has not been widely used for that range of languages. To study further the combinatorial properties of infinite words, the notion of maximal pattern complexity, denoted by p

    The Identity Correspondence Problem and its Applications

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    In this paper we study several closely related fundamental problems for words and matrices. First, we introduce the Identity Correspondence Problem (ICP): whether a finite set of pairs of words (over a group alphabet) can generate an identity pair by a sequence of concatenations. We prove that ICP is undecidable by a reduction of Post's Correspondence Problem via several new encoding techniques. In the second part of the paper we use ICP to answer a long standing open problem concerning matrix semigroups: "Is it decidable for a finitely generated semigroup S of square integral matrices whether or not the identity matrix belongs to S?". We show that the problem is undecidable starting from dimension four even when the number of matrices in the generator is 48. From this fact, we can immediately derive that the fundamental problem of whether a finite set of matrices generates a group is also undecidable. We also answer several question for matrices over different number fields. Apart from the application to matrix problems, we believe that the Identity Correspondence Problem will also be useful in identifying new areas of undecidable problems in abstract algebra, computational questions in logic and combinatorics on words.Comment: We have made some proofs clearer and fixed an important typo from the published journal version of this article, see footnote 3 on page 1
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