604 research outputs found
Harmonic and gold Sturmian words
AbstractIn the combinatorics of Sturmian words an essential role is played by the set PER of all finite words w on the alphabet A={a,b} having two periods p and q which are coprime and such that |w|=p+q−2. As is well known, the set St of all finite factors of all Sturmian words equals the set of factors of PER. Moreover, the elements of PER have many remarkable structural properties. In particular, the relation Stand=A∪PER{ab,ba} holds, where Stand is the set of all finite standard Sturmian words. In this paper we introduce two proper subclasses of PER that we denote by Harm and Gold. We call an element of Harm a harmonic word and an element of Gold a gold word. A harmonic word w beginning with the letter x is such that the ratio of two periods p/q, with p<q, is equal to its slope, i.e., (|w|y+1)/(|w|x+1), where {x,y}={a,b}. A gold word is an element of PER such that p and q are primes. Some characterizations of harmonic words are given and the number of harmonic words of each length is computed. Moreover, we prove that St is equal to the set of factors of Harm and to the set of factors of Gold. We introduce also the classes Harm and Gold of all infinite standard Sturmian words having infinitely many prefixes in Harm and Gold, respectively. We prove that Gold∩Harm contain continuously many elements. Finally, some conjectures are formulated
A Coloring Problem for Sturmian and Episturmian Words
We consider the following open question in the spirit of Ramsey theory: Given
an aperiodic infinite word , does there exist a finite coloring of its
factors such that no factorization of is monochromatic? We show that such a
coloring always exists whenever is a Sturmian word or a standard
episturmian word
Characterizations of finite and infinite episturmian words via lexicographic orderings
In this paper, we characterize by lexicographic order all finite Sturmian and
episturmian words, i.e., all (finite) factors of such infinite words.
Consequently, we obtain a characterization of infinite episturmian words in a
"wide sense" (episturmian and episkew infinite words). That is, we characterize
the set of all infinite words whose factors are (finite) episturmian.
Similarly, we characterize by lexicographic order all balanced infinite words
over a 2-letter alphabet; in other words, all Sturmian and skew infinite words,
the factors of which are (finite) Sturmian.Comment: 18 pages; to appear in the European Journal of Combinatoric
Open and Closed Prefixes of Sturmian Words
A word is closed if it contains a proper factor that occurs both as a prefix
and as a suffix but does not have internal occurrences, otherwise it is open.
We deal with the sequence of open and closed prefixes of Sturmian words and
prove that this sequence characterizes every finite or infinite Sturmian word
up to isomorphisms of the alphabet. We then characterize the combinatorial
structure of the sequence of open and closed prefixes of standard Sturmian
words. We prove that every standard Sturmian word, after swapping its first
letter, can be written as an infinite product of squares of reversed standard
words.Comment: To appear in WORDS 2013 proceeding
The sequence of open and closed prefixes of a Sturmian word
A finite word is closed if it contains a factor that occurs both as a prefix
and as a suffix but does not have internal occurrences, otherwise it is open.
We are interested in the {\it oc-sequence} of a word, which is the binary
sequence whose -th element is if the prefix of length of the word is
open, or if it is closed. We exhibit results showing that this sequence is
deeply related to the combinatorial and periodic structure of a word. In the
case of Sturmian words, we show that these are uniquely determined (up to
renaming letters) by their oc-sequence. Moreover, we prove that the class of
finite Sturmian words is a maximal element with this property in the class of
binary factorial languages. We then discuss several aspects of Sturmian words
that can be expressed through this sequence. Finally, we provide a linear-time
algorithm that computes the oc-sequence of a finite word, and a linear-time
algorithm that reconstructs a finite Sturmian word from its oc-sequence.Comment: Published in Advances in Applied Mathematics. Journal version of
arXiv:1306.225
Extremal properties of (epi)Sturmian sequences and distribution modulo 1
Starting from a study of Y. Bugeaud and A. Dubickas (2005) on a question in
distribution of real numbers modulo 1 via combinatorics on words, we survey
some combinatorial properties of (epi)Sturmian sequences and distribution
modulo 1 in connection to their work. In particular we focus on extremal
properties of (epi)Sturmian sequences, some of which have been rediscovered
several times
On the Structure of Bispecial Sturmian Words
A balanced word is one in which any two factors of the same length contain
the same number of each letter of the alphabet up to one. Finite binary
balanced words are called Sturmian words. A Sturmian word is bispecial if it
can be extended to the left and to the right with both letters remaining a
Sturmian word. There is a deep relation between bispecial Sturmian words and
Christoffel words, that are the digital approximations of Euclidean segments in
the plane. In 1997, J. Berstel and A. de Luca proved that \emph{palindromic}
bispecial Sturmian words are precisely the maximal internal factors of
\emph{primitive} Christoffel words. We extend this result by showing that
bispecial Sturmian words are precisely the maximal internal factors of
\emph{all} Christoffel words. Our characterization allows us to give an
enumerative formula for bispecial Sturmian words. We also investigate the
minimal forbidden words for the language of Sturmian words.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1204.167
On prefixal factorizations of words
We consider the class of all infinite words over
a finite alphabet admitting a prefixal factorization, i.e., a factorization
where each is a non-empty prefix of With
each one naturally associates a "derived" infinite word
which may or may not admit a prefixal factorization. We are
interested in the class of all words of
such that for all . Our primary
motivation for studying the class stems from its connection
to a coloring problem on infinite words independently posed by T. Brown in
\cite{BTC} and by the second author in \cite{LQZ}. More precisely, let be the class of all words such that for every finite
coloring there exist and a factorization
with for each In \cite{DPZ}
we conjectured that a word if and only if is purely
periodic. In this paper we show that so
in other words, potential candidates to a counter-example to our conjecture are
amongst the non-periodic elements of We establish several
results on the class . In particular, we show that a
Sturmian word belongs to if and only if is
nonsingular, i.e., no proper suffix of is a standard Sturmian word
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