Related papers: Another Solution to the Thue Problem of Non-Repeat…
We prove that for a suitably nice class of random substitutions, their corresponding subshifts have automorphism groups that contain an infinite simple subgroup and a copy of the automorphism group of a full shift. Hence, they are…
Automatic identification of mutiword expressions (MWEs) is a pre-requisite for semantically-oriented downstream applications. This task is challenging because MWEs, especially verbal ones (VMWEs), exhibit surface variability. However, this…
A function on an algebra is congruence preserving if, for any congruence, it maps congruent elements to congruent elements. We show that, on a free monoid generated by at least 3 letters, a function from the free monoid into itself is…
We introduce two classes of morphisms over the alphabet $A=\{0,1\}$ whose fixed points contain infinitely many antipalindromic factors. An antipalindrome is a finite word invariant under the action of the antimorphism…
In this paper we introduce a new family of string processing problems. We are given two or more strings and we are asked to compute a factor common to all strings that preserves a specific property and has maximal length. Here we consider…
An abelian square is the concatenation of two words that are anagrams of one another. A word of length $n$ can contain at most $\Theta(n^2)$ distinct factors, and there exist words of length $n$ containing $\Theta(n^2)$ distinct…
We identify the structure of the lexicographically least word avoiding 5/4-powers on the alphabet of nonnegative integers. Specifically, we show that this word has the form $p \tau(\varphi(z) \varphi^2(z) \cdots)$ where $p, z$ are finite…
We say that two finite words $u$ and $v$ are abelian equivalent if and only if they have the same number of occurrences of each letter, or equivalently if they define the same Parikh vector. In this paper we investigate various abelian…
We solve a problem of Petrova, finalizing the classification of letter patterns avoidable by ternary square-free words; we show that there is a ternary square-free word avoiding letter pattern $xyzxzyx$. In fact, we: (1) characterize all…
We define a morphism based upon a Latin square that generalizes the Thue-Morse morphism. We prove that fixed points of this morphism are overlap-free sequences generalizing results of Allouche - Shallit and Frid.
Carpi constructed an infinite word over a 4-letter alphabet that avoids squares in all subsequences indexed by arithmetic progressions of odd difference. We show a connection between Carpi's construction and the paperfolding words. We…
An efficient, when compared to exhaustive enumeration, algorithm for computing the number of square-free words of length $n$ over the alphabet $\{a, b, c\}$ is presented.
Using a new approach based on automatic sequences, logic, and a decision procedure, we reprove some old theorems about circularly squarefree words and unbordered conjugates in a new and simpler way. Furthermore, we prove three new results…
In combinatorics on words, a word $w$ over an alphabet $\Sigma$ is said to avoid a pattern $p$ over an alphabet $\Delta$ if there is no factor $f$ of $w$ such that $f=h(p)$ where $h:\Delta^*\to\Sigma^*$ is a non-erasing morphism. A pattern…
We develop the theory of fragile words by introducing the concept of eraser morphism and extending the concept to more general contexts such as (free) inverse monoids. We characterize the image of the eraser morphism in the free group case,…
In 1976, Dekking showed that there exists an infinite binary word that contains neither squares yy with y >= 4 nor cubes xxx. We show that `cube' can be replaced by any fractional power > 5/2. We also consider the analogous problem where…
An infinite permutation is a linear ordering of the set of non-negative integers. Generally, the properties of infinite permutations analogous to those of infinite words show some resemblances and some differences between permutations and…
The (bitwise) complement $\overline{x}$ of a binary word $x$ is obtained by changing each $0$ in $x$ to $1$ and vice versa. An $\textit{antisquare}$ is a nonempty word of the form $x\, \overline{x}$. In this paper, we study infinite binary…
We investigate the structural relationship between prefix-free codes over the binary alphabet and a class of unlabeled rooted trees, which we call \emph{symmetric} trees. We establish a canonical correspondence between prefix-free codes and…
We study the equality problem for infinite words obtained by iterating morphisms. In particular, we give a practical algorithm to decide whether or not two words generated by primitive morphisms are equal.