Related papers: Complement Avoidance in Binary Words
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…
Let $\mathcal{C}_n$ denote the set of words $w=w_1\cdots w_n$ on the alphabet of positive integers satisfying $w_{i+1}\leq w_i+1$ for $1 \leq i \leq n-1$ with $w_1=1$. The members of $\mathcal{C}_n$ are known as Catalan words and are…
A finite word $w$ is called \emph{rich} if it contains $\vert w\vert+1$ distinct palindromic factors including the empty word. For every finite rich word $w$ there are distinct nonempty palindromes $w_1, w_2,\dots,w_p$ such that…
A finite word u is said to be bordered if u has a proper prefix which is also a suffix of u, and unbordered otherwise. Ehrenfeucht and Silberger proved that an infinite word is purely periodic if and only if it contains only finitely many…
Given an infinite word ${\bf w}$ on a finite alphabet, an immediate question arises:~can we understand the frequency of letters in ${\bf w}$\,? For words that are the fixed points of substitutions, the answer to this question is often `yes'…
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...,…
For every pattern $p$ over the alphabet $\{x,y,x^R,y^R\}$, we specify the least $k$ such that $p$ is $k$-avoidable.
The relationship between the length of a word and the maximum length of its unbordered factors is investigated in this paper. Consider a finite word w of length n. We call a word bordered, if it has a proper prefix which is also a suffix of…
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…
We investigate the least number of palindromic factors in an infinite word. We first consider general alphabets, and give answers to this problem for periodic and non-periodic words, closed or not under reversal of factors. We then…
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 x of w and no non-erasing morphism h from Delta^* to Sigma^* such that h(p) = x. Bell and Goh have recently…
A regular continuant is the denominator $K$ of a terminating regular continued fraction, interpreted as a function of the partial quotients. We regard $K$ as a function defined on the set of all finite words on the alphabet $1<2<3<\dots$…
We study subshift that arise by excluding words of length two from Dyck shifts. The words that are to be excluded are taken from a finite set that is not literal-uniform.
Pirillo and Varricchio, and independently, Halbeisen and Hungerbuhler considered the following problem, open since 1994: Does there exist an infinite word w over a finite subset of Z such that w contains no two consecutive blocks of the…
Let $C,W\subseteq \mathbb{Z}$. If $C+W=\mathbb{Z}$, then the set $C$ is called an additive complement to $W$ in $\mathbb{Z}$. If no proper subset of $C$ is an additive complement to $W$, then $C$ is called a minimal additive complement. Let…
We adapt (over $\mathbb{F}_2$) the general notions of multiplicative function, Dirichlet convolution and Inverse. We get some interesting results, namely necessary conditions for an odd binary polynomial to be perfect. Note that we are…
A prefix normal word is a binary word whose prefixes contain at least as many 1s as any of its factors of the same length. Introduced by Fici and Lipt\'ak in 2011 the notion of prefix normality is so far only defined for words over the…
We use results on Dyck words and lattice paths to derive a formula for the exact number of binary words of a given length with a given minimal abelian border length, tightening a bound on that number from Christodoulakis et al. (Discrete…
We find the lexicographically least infinite binary rich word having critical exponent $2+\sqrt{2}/2$
A {\em subsequence} of a word $w$ is a word $u$ that can be obtained by deleting some letters from $w$ while maintaining the relative order of the remaining letters, e.g., $\mathtt{lala}$ is a subsequence of $\mathtt{alfalfa}$. A word, over…