Related papers: Critical factorisation in square-free words
The repetition threshold for words on $n$ letters, denoted $\mbox{RT}(n)$, is the infimum of the set of all $r$ such that there are arbitrarily long $r$-free words over $n$ letters. A repetition threshold for circular words on $n$ letters…
We study infinite binary words that contain few distinct palindromes. In particular, we classify such words according to their critical exponents. This extends results by Fici and Zamboni [TCS 2013]. Interestingly, the words with 18 and 20…
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…
A word $w$ is called rich if it contains $| w|+1$ palindromic factors, including the empty word. We say that a rich word $w$ can be extended in at least two ways if there are two distinct letters $x,y$ such that $wx,wy$ are rich. Let $R$…
In [A. Frid, S. Puzynina, L.Q. Zamboni, \textit{On palindromic factorization of words}, Adv. in Appl. Math. 50 (2013), 737-748], it was conjectured that any infinite word whose palindromic lengths of factors are bounded is ultimately…
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…
We introduced the notation of a set of prohibitions and give definitions of a complete set and a crucial word with respect to a given set of prohibitions. We consider 3 particular sets which appear in different areas of mathematics and for…
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…
Fraenkel and Simpson showed that the number of distinct squares in a word of length n is bounded from above by 2n, since at most two distinct squares have their rightmost, or last, occurrence begin at each position. Improvements by Ilie to…
A word $w$ is said to be closed if it has a proper factor $x$ which occurs exactly twice in $w$, as a prefix and as a suffix of $w$. Based on the concept of Ziv-Lempel factorization, we define the closed $z$-factorization of finite and…
A finite word $w$ is an abelian square if $w = xx^\prime$ with $x^\prime$ a permutation of $x$. In 1972, Entringer, Jackson, and Schatz proved that every binary word of length $k^2 + 6k$ contains an abelian square of length $\geq 2k$. We…
A finite word $w$ is called \textit{closed} if it has length at most 1 or it contains a proper factor that occurs both as a prefix and as a suffix but does not have internal occurrences in $w$. An infinite word $u$ is called…
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.
A word~$w$ has a border $u$ if $u$ is a non-empty proper prefix and suffix of $u$. A word~$w$ is said to be \emph{closed} if $w$ is of length at most $1$ or if $w$ has a border that occurs exactly twice in $w$. A word~$w$ is said to 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 square matrix $A$ is completely positive if $A=BB^T$, where $B$ is a (not necessarily square) nonnegative matrix. In general, a completely positive matrix may have many, even infinitely many, such CP factorizations. But in some cases a…
In 2005, Rampersad and the second author proved a number of theorems about infinite words x with the property that if w is any sufficiently long finite factor of x, then its reversal w^R is not a factor of x. In this note we revisit these…
In combinatorics on words, a word $w$ over an alphabet $\Sigma$ is said to avoid a pattern $p$ over an alphabet $\Delta$ of variables if there is no factor $f$ of $w$ such that $f=h(p)$ where $h:\Delta^*\to\Sigma^*$ is a non-erasing…
Word Break is a prototypical factorization problem in string processing: Given a word $w$ of length $N$ and a dictionary $\mathcal{D} = \{d_1, d_2, \ldots, d_{K}\}$ of $K$ strings, determine whether we can partition $w$ into words from…
In a recent paper of Rampersad et al., the authors conjectured that the smallest possible critical exponent of an infinite balanced word over a 5-letter alphabet is $3/2$. We prove this result, using a formulation of first-order logic, the…