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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.

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2021-05-11 Vladislav Makarov

Circular words are cyclically ordered finite sequences of letters. We give a computer-free proof of the following result by Currie: square-free circular words over the ternary alphabet exist for all lengths $l$ except for 5, 7, 9, 10, 14,…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2010-10-26 Arseny M. Shur

We prove that for any sequence of binary alphabets $\mathcal{A}_1,\mathcal{A}_2,\dots$, there exists a cube-free word $c_1c_2\dots$ so that $c_1\in\mathcal{A}_1,c_2\in\mathcal{A}_2,\dots$. In particular, for every $n$, there are at least…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-04 Vuong Bui , Matthieu Rosenfeld

A {\em square} is a word of the form $uu$. In this paper we prove that for a given finite word $w$, the number of distinct square factors of $w$ is bounded by $|w|-|\Alphabet(w)|+1$, where $|w|$ denotes the length of $w$ and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-04-27 Srečko Brlek , Shuo Li

We describe a new non-constructive technique to show that squares are avoidable by an infinite word even if we force some letters from the alphabet to appear at certain occurrences. We show that as long as forced positions are at distance…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2020-02-10 Matthieu Rosenfeld

A square is a factor $S = (S_1; S_2)$ where $S_1$ and $S_2$ have the same pattern, and a permutation is said to be square-free if it contains no non-trivial squares. The permutation is further said to be bicrucial if every extension to the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-01-31 Carla Groenland , Tom Johnston

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.…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2015-05-14 Marcin Kubica , Jakub Radoszewski , Wojciech Rytter , Tomasz Walen

A word $\bar{w} = \bar{u}\bar{u}$ is a $long$ $square$ if $\bar{u}$ is of length at least 3; a word $\bar{w}$ is $long$-$square$-$free$ if $\bar{w}$ contains no sub-word that is a long square. We can use words to generate graph colorings; a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-01-28 Joseph Antonides , Claire Kiers , Nicole Yamzon

In this paper we answer two recent questions from Charlier et al. and Harju about self-shuffling words. An infinite word $w$ is called self-shuffling, if $w=\prod_{i=0}^\infty U_iV_i=\prod_{i=0}^\infty U_i=\prod_{i=0}^\infty V_i$ for some…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2014-11-11 Mike Müller , Svetlana Puzynina , Michaël Rao

A graph $G = (V, E)$ is word-representable, if there exists a word w over the alphabet V such that for letters ${x, y} \in V$ , $x$ and $y$ alternate in $w$ if and only if $xy \in E$. In this paper, we prove that any non-empty…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-01-29 Biswajit Das , Ramesh Hariharasubramanian

Entringer, Jackson, and Schatz conjectured in 1974 that every infinite cubefree binary word contains arbitrarily long squares. In this paper we show this conjecture is false: there exist infinite cubefree binary words avoiding all squares…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Narad Rampersad , Jeffrey Shallit , Ming-wei Wang

We enumerate all ternary length-l square-free words, which are words avoiding squares of words up to length l, for l<=24. We analyse the singular behaviour of the corresponding generating functions. This leads to new upper entropy bounds…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Christoph Richard , Uwe Grimm

A position $p$ in a word $w$ is critical if the minimal local period at $p$ is equal to the global period of $w$. According to the Critical Factorisation Theorem all words of length at least two have a critical point. We study the number…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-21 Tero Harju

We answer a question of Harju: An infinite square-free ternary word with an $n$-stem factorization exists for any $n\ge 13$. We show that there are uniform ternary morphisms of length $k$ for every $k\ge 23$. This resolves almost completely…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2012-07-23 James D. Currie

A \emph{square} is a word of the form $uu$, where $u$ is a nonempty finite word. Given a finite word $w$ of length $n$, let $[w]$ denote the corresponding \emph{circular word}, i.e., the set of all cyclic rotations of $w$. We study the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-13 Shuo Li , Yuan Song

A tangram is a word in which every letter occurs an even number of times. Thus it can be cut into parts that can be arranged into two identical words. The \emph{cut number} of a tangram is the minimum number of required cuts in this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-07-16 Pascal Ochem , Théo Pierron

We calculate admissible values of r such that a square-free polynomial with integer coefficients, no fixed prime divisor and irreducible factors of degree at most 3 takes infinitely many values that are a product of at most r distinct…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2017-01-20 Andrew Booker , Tim Browning

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…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2020-03-11 Laura Barker , Pamela Fleischmann , Katharina Harwardt , Florin Manea , Dirk Nowotka

An order-preserving square in a string is a fragment of the form $uv$ where $u\neq v$ and $u$ is order-isomorphic to $v$. We show that a string $w$ of length $n$ over an alphabet of size $\sigma$ contains $\mathcal{O}(\sigma n)$…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-02-03 Paweł Gawrychowski , Samah Ghazawi , Gad M. Landau

Let f be a cubic polynomial. Then there are infinitely many primes p such that f(p) is square-free.

Number Theory · Mathematics 2007-06-12 Harald Andres Helfgott