On Universal Cycles for Multisets
Combinatorics
2024-02-27 v2
Abstract
A Universal Cycle for t-multisets of [n]={1,...,n} is a cyclic sequence of integers from [n] with the property that each t-multiset of [n] appears exactly once consecutively in the sequence. For such a sequence to exist it is necessary that n divides , and it is reasonable to conjecture that this condition is sufficient for large enough n in terms of t. We prove the conjecture completely for t in {2,3} and partially for t in {4,6}. These results also support a positive answer to a question of Knuth.
Cite
@article{arxiv.math/0701488,
title = {On Universal Cycles for Multisets},
author = {Glenn Hurlbert and Tobias Johnson and Joshua Zahl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0701488},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
14 pages, two figures, will appear in Discrete Mathematics' special issue on de Bruijn Cycles, Gray Codes and their generalizations; paper revised according to journal referees' suggestions