English

On a probabilistic extension of the Oldenburger-Kolakoski sequence

Discrete Mathematics 2023-01-04 v1 Combinatorics Probability

Abstract

The Oldenburger-Kolakoski sequence is the only infinite sequence over the alphabet {1,2}\{1,2\} that starts with 11 and is its own run-length encoding. In the present work, we take a step back from this largely known and studied sequence by introducing some randomness in the choice of the letters written. This enables us to provide some results on the convergence of the density of 11's in the resulting sequence. When the choice of the letters is given by an infinite sequence of i.i.d. random variables or by a Markov chain, the average densities of letters converge. Moreover, in the case of i.i.d. random variables, we are able to prove that the densities even almost surely converge.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.01116,
  title  = {On a probabilistic extension of the Oldenburger-Kolakoski sequence},
  author = {Chloé Boisson and Damien Jamet and Irène Marcovici},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.01116},
  year   = {2023}
}