On the critical exponent of generalized Thue-Morse words

For certain generalized Thue-Morse words t, we compute the "critical exponent", i.e., the supremum of the set of rational numbers that are exponents of powers in t, and determine exactly the occurrences of powers realizing it.Comment: 13 pages; to appear in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (accepted October 15, 2007

Quasicrystals, model sets, and automatic sequences

We survey mathematical properties of quasicrystals, first from the point of view of harmonic analysis, then from the point of view of morphic and automatic sequences. Nous proposons un tour d'horizon de propri\'et\'es math\'ematiques des quasicristaux, d'abord du point de vue de l'analyse harmonique, ensuite du point de vue des suites morphiques et automatiques

Binary patterns in the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence

We show that, with the exception of the words $a^2ba^2$ and $b^2ab^2$, all (finite or infinite) binary patterns in the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence can actually be found in that sequence as segments (up to exchange of letters in the infinite case). This result was previously attributed to unpublished work by D. Guaiana and may also be derived from publications of A. Shur only available in Russian. We also identify the (finitely many) finite binary patterns that appear non trivially, in the sense that they are obtained by applying an endomorphism that does not map the set of all segments of the sequence into itself

Subword balance, position indices and power sums

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate various ways of characterizing words, mainly over a binary alphabet, using information about the positions of occurrences of letters in words. We introduce two new measures associated with words, the position index and sum of position indices. We establish some characterizations, connections with Parikh matrices, and connections with power sums. One particular emphasis concerns the effect of morphisms and iterated morphisms on words

Indices of fixed points not accumulated by periodic points

We prove that for every integer sequence $I$ satisfying Dold relations there exists a map $f : \mathbb{R}^d \to \mathbb{R}^d$, $d \ge 2$, such that $\mathrm{Per(f)} = \mathrm{Fix(f)} = \{o\}$, where $o$ denotes the origin, and $(i(f^n, o))_n = I$.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Final version to appear in Topol. Methods Nonlinear Ana

Words and Transcendence

Is it possible to distinguish algebraic from transcendental real numbers by considering the $b$-ary expansion in some base $b\ge2$? In 1950, \'E. Borel suggested that the answer is no and that for any real irrational algebraic number $x$ and for any base $g\ge2$, the $g$-ary expansion of $x$ should satisfy some of the laws that are shared by almost all numbers. There is no explicitly known example of a triple $(g,a,x)$, where $g\ge3$ is an integer, $a$ a digit in $\{0,...,g-1\}$ and $x$ a real irrational algebraic number, for which one can claim that the digit $a$ occurs infinitely often in the $g$-ary expansion of $x$. However, some progress has been made recently, thanks mainly to clever use of Schmidt's subspace theorem. We review some of these results

Generalized Thue-Morse words and palindromic richness

We prove that the generalized Thue-Morse word $\mathbf{t}_{b,m}$ defined for $b \geq 2$ and $m \geq 1$ as $\mathbf{t}_{b,m} = (s_b(n) \mod m)_{n=0}^{+\infty}$, where $s_b(n)$ denotes the sum of digits in the base-$b$ representation of the integer $n$, has its language closed under all elements of a group $D_m$ isomorphic to the dihedral group of order $2m$ consisting of morphisms and antimorphisms. Considering simultaneously antimorphisms $\Theta \in D_m$, we show that $\mathbf{t}_{b,m}$ is saturated by $\Theta$-palindromes up to the highest possible level. Using the terminology generalizing the notion of palindromic richness for more antimorphisms recently introduced by the author and E. Pelantov\'a, we show that $\mathbf{t}_{b,m}$ is $D_m$-rich. We also calculate the factor complexity of $\mathbf{t}_{b,m}$.Comment: 11 page

On the subword complexity of Thue–Morse polynomial extractions

AbstractLet the (subword) complexity of a sequence u=(un)n=0∞ over a finite set Σ be the function m↦Pu(m), where Pu(m) is the number of distinct blocks of length m in u. Let t=(tn)n=0∞ denote the Thue–Morse sequence. In this paper we study the complexity of the sequences tH=(tH(n))n=0∞, when H(n)∈Q[n] is a polynomial with H(N)⊆N. In particular, we solve an open problem of Allouche and Shallit regarding (tn2)n=0∞. We also study the vector space over Z/2Z, spanned by the sequences tH