Related papers: Extremal Square-free Words
A word $u=u_1\dots u_n$ is a scattered factor of a word $w$ if $u$ can be obtained from $w$ by deleting some of its letters: there exist the (potentially empty) words $v_0,v_1,..,v_n$ such that $w = v_0u_1v_1...u_nv_n$. The set of all…
We study decompositions of words into subwords that are in some sense similar, which means that one subword may be obtained from the other by a relatively simple transformation. Our main inspiration are shuffle squares, an intriguing class…
We introduce the notion of expandability in the context of automaton semigroups and groups: a word is k-expandable if one can append a suffix to it such that the size of the orbit under the action of the automaton increases by at least k.…
The \emph{word problem} of a group $G = \langle \Sigma \rangle$ can be defined as the set of formal words in $\Sigma^*$ that represent the identity in $G$. When viewed as formal languages, this gives a strong connection between classes of…
We look at a class of transcendental real numbers xi which, together with their square, satisfy some extremal property of simultaneous approximation by rational numbers with the same denominator. We give a sufficient condition for such a…
A bidimensional bifix (in short bibifix) of a square matrix T is a square submatrix of T which occurs in the top-left and bottom-right corners of T. This allows us to extend the definition of bifix-free words and cross-bifix-free set of…
We study the properties of the ternary infinite word p = 012102101021012101021012 ... , that is, the fixed point of the map h:0->01, 1->21, 2->0. We determine its factor complexity, critical exponent, and prove that it is 2-balanced. We…
In 2009, Shur published the following conjecture: Let $L$ be a power-free language and let $e(L)\subseteq L$ be the set of words of $L$ that can be extended to a bi-infinite word respecting the given power-freeness. If $u, v \in e(L)$ then…
We implement a decision procedure for answering questions about a class of infinite words that might be called (for lack of a better name) "Fibonacci-automatic". This class includes, for example, the famous Fibonacci word f = 01001010...,…
A word on $q$ symbols is a sequence of letters from a fixed alphabet of size $q$. For an integer $k\ge 1$, we say that a word $w$ is $k$-universal if, given an arbitrary word of length $k$, one can obtain it by removing entries from $w$. It…
Every integer greater than two can be expressed as the sum of a prime and a square-free number. Expanding on recent work, we provide explicit and asymptotic results when divisibility conditions are imposed on the square-free number. For…
A word is quasiperiodic (or coverable) if it can be covered with occurrences of another finite word, called its quasiperiod. A word is multi-scale quasiperiodic (or multi-scale coverable) if it has infinitely many different quasiperiods.…
A finite word $f$ is Hamming-isometric if for any two word $u$ and $v$ of same length avoiding $f$, $u$ can be transformed into $v$ by changing one by one all the letters on which $u$ differs from $v$, in such a way that all of the new…
We introduce new avoidability problems for words by considering equivalence relations, k-abelian equivalences, which lie properly in between equality and commutative equality, i.e. abelian equality. For two k-abelian equivalent words the…
A shuffle square is a word consisting of two shuffled copies of the same word. For instance, the Turkish word $\mathtt{\color{red}{ik}\color{blue}{i}\color{red}{li}\color{blue}{kli}}$ (binary in English) is a shuffle square, as it can be…
Partial words are sequences over a finite alphabet that may contain wildcard symbols, called holes, which match or are compatible with all letters; partial words without holes are said to be full words (or simply words). Given an infinite…
A $4^-$-power is a non-empty word of the form $XXXX^-$, where $X^-$ is obtained from $X$ by erasing the last letter. A binary word is called {\em faux-bonacci} if it contains no $4^-$-powers, and no factor 11. We show that faux-bonacci…
Given a positive integer $n$, we let ${\rm sfp}(n)$ denote the squarefree part of $n$. We determine all positive integers $n$ for which $\max \{ {\rm sfp}(n), {\rm sfp}(n+1), {\rm sfp}(n+2) \} \leq 150$ by relating the problem to finding…
For a family $\mathcal{F}$ of graphs, let $ex(n,\mathcal{F})$ denote the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph which contains none of the members of $\mathcal{F}$ as a subgraph. A longstanding problem in extremal graph theory asks…
In 2011, Fici and Lipt\'ak introduced prefix normal words. A binary word is prefix normal if it has no factor (substring) that contains more occurrences of the letter 1 than the prefix of the same length. Among the open problems regarding…