English

Complexity of Linear Subsequences of $k$-Automatic Sequences

Formal Languages and Automata Theory 2026-04-03 v5 Discrete Mathematics Combinatorics Number Theory

Abstract

We construct automata with input(s) in base kk recognizing some basic relations and study their number of states. We also consider some basic operations on kk-automatic sequences (h(i))i0(h(i))_{i \geq 0} and discuss their state complexity. We find a relationship between subword complexity of the interior sequence (h(i))i0(h'(i))_{i \geq 0} and state complexity of the linear subsequence (h(ni+c))i0(h(ni+c))_{i \geq 0}. We resolve a recent question of Zantema and Bosma about linear subsequences of kk-automatic sequences with input in most-significant-digit-first format. We also discuss the state complexity and runtime complexity of using a reasonable interpretation of B\"uchi arithmetic to actually construct some of the studied automata recognizing relations or carrying out operations on automatic sequences.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.10017,
  title  = {Complexity of Linear Subsequences of $k$-Automatic Sequences},
  author = {Delaram Moradi and Narad Rampersad and Jeffrey Shallit},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.10017},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Fixed some typos and other minor inaccuracies

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:19:29.307Z