Related papers: Maximal right smooth extension chains
For every $n\geq 27$, we show that the number of $n/(n-1)^+$-free words (i.e., threshold words) of length $k$ on $n$ letters grows exponentially in $k$. This settles all but finitely many cases of a conjecture of Ochem.
We study long $r$-twins in random words and permutations. Motivated by questions posed in works of Dudek-Grytczuk-Ruci\'nski, we obtain the following. For a uniform word in $[k]^n$ we prove sharp one-sided tail bounds showing that the…
The piecewise complexity $h(u)$ of a word is the minimal length of subwords needed to exactly characterise $u$. Its piecewise minimality index $\rho(u)$ is the smallest length $k$ such that $u$ is minimal among its order-$k$ class $[u]_k$…
To any infinite word w over a finite alphabet A we can associate two infinite words min(w) and max(w) such that any prefix of min(w) (resp. max(w)) is the lexicographically smallest (resp. greatest) amongst the factors of w of the same…
In 1985, Restivo and Salemi presented a list of five problems concerning power free languages. Problem $4$ states: Given $\alpha$-power-free words $u$ and $v$, decide whether there is a transition from $u$ to $v$. Problem $5$ states: Given…
A square-free word $w$ over a fixed alphabet $\Sigma$ is extremal if every word obtained from $w$ by inserting a single letter from $\Sigma$ (at any position) contains a square. Grytczuk et al. recently introduced the concept of extremal…
The compact directed acyclic word graph (CDAWG) of a string $T$ is an index occupying $O(\mathsf{e})$ space, where $\mathsf{e}$ is the number of right extensions of maximal repeats in $T$. For highly repetitive datasets, the measure…
A word is square-free if it does not contain nonempty factors of the form $XX$. In 1906 Thue proved that there exist arbitrarily long square-free words over a $3$-letter alphabet. It was proved recently [7] that among these words there are…
Weighted automata are nondeterministic automata with numerical weights on transitions. They can define quantitative languages~$L$ that assign to each word~$w$ a real number~$L(w)$. In the case of infinite words, the value of a run is…
We extend results regarding a combinatorial model introduced by Black, Drellich, and Tymoczko (2017+) which generalizes the folding of the RNA molecule in biology. Consider a word on alphabet $\{A_1, \overline{A}_1, \ldots, A_m,…
We investigate the problem of the maximum number of cubic subwords (of the form $www$) in a given word. We also consider square subwords (of the form $ww$). The problem of the maximum number of squares in a word is not well understood.…
We consider words $w$ over the alphabet $\Sigma=\{0,1,2\}$. It is shown that there are irreducibly square-free words of all lengths $n$ except 4,5,7 and 12. Such a word is square-free (i.e., it has no repetitions $uu$ as factors), but by…
A finite Sturmian word w over the alphabet {a,b} is left special (resp. right special) if aw and bw (resp. wa and wb) are both Sturmian words. A bispecial Sturmian word is a Sturmian word that is both left and right special. We show as a…
We begin with a new analysis of formal words. Let w be a formal word in letters g_1,...,g_k. The word map associated with w maps the permutations s_1,...,s_k in S_n to the permutation obtained by replacing for each i, every occurrence of…
Any finite word $w$ of length $n$ contains at most $n+1$ distinct palindromic factors. If the bound $n+1$ is reached, the word $w$ is called rich. The number of rich words of length $n$ over an alphabet of cardinality $q$ is denoted…
Borel and Reutenauer (2006) showed, \emph{inter alia}, that a word $w$ of length $n>1$ is conjugate to a Christoffel word if and only if for $k=0,1, \dots , n-1$, $w$ has $k+1$ distinct circular factors of length $k$. Sturmian words are the…
We study the maximum multiplicity $\mathcal{M}(k,n)$ of a simple transposition $s_k=(k \: k+1)$ in a reduced word for the longest permutation $w_0=n \: n-1 \: \cdots \: 2 \: 1$, a problem closely related to much previous work on sorting…
Our first main result shows that, for words with a fixed multiset of weak right-to-left minima, the statistics within each of the following three classes are equidistributed: 1. Mahonian statistics: $\textsf{inv}$, $\textsf{maj}$,…
Twins in a finite word are formed by a pair of identical subwords placed at disjoint sets of positions. We investigate the maximum length of twins in a random word over a $k$-letter alphabet. The obtained lower bounds for small values of…
A \emph{power} is a word of the form $\underbrace{uu...u}_{k \; \text{times}}$, where $u$ is a word and $k$ is a positive integer; the power is also called a {\em $k$-power} and $k$ is its {\em exponent}. We prove that for any $k \ge 2$,…