English

Crucial Words and the Complexity of Some Extremal Problems for Sets of Prohibited Words

Combinatorics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We introduced the notation of a set of prohibitions and give definitions of a complete set and a crucial word with respect to a given set of prohibitions. We consider 3 particular sets which appear in different areas of mathematics and for each of them examine the length of a crucial word. One of these sets is proved to be incomplete. The problem of determining lengths of words that are free from a set of prohibitions is shown to be NP-complete, although the related problem of whether or not a given set of prohibitions is complete is known to be effectively solvable.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0205217,
  title  = {Crucial Words and the Complexity of Some Extremal Problems for Sets of Prohibited Words},
  author = {A. Evdokimov and S. Kitaev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0205217},
  year   = {2007}
}

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16 pages