Related papers: The Shortest Interesting Binary Words
Twins in a finite word are formed by a pair of identical subwords placed at disjoint sets of positions. We investigate the maximum length of twins in a random word over a $k$-letter alphabet. The obtained lower bounds for small values of…
Fici and Saarela ([2]) conjectured that a binary word of length n contains at least $\lfloor n/4 \rfloor$ abelian squares. We slightly extend this conjecture and show that it holds in some special cases. In all other cases we have the…
These lecture notes provide an introduction to combinatorics on words and its interactions with dynamics, algebra, and arithmetic. The central theme is the notion of low factor complexity for infinite words. We investigate the following…
We find the lexicographically least infinite binary rich word having critical exponent $2+\sqrt{2}/2$
In this note, we give a construction that provides a tight lower bound of mn-1 for the length of the shortest word in the intersection of two regular languages with state complexities m and n.
We characterize exactly the lengths of binary circular words containing no squares other than 00, 11, and 0101. Key words: combinatorics on words, circular words, necklaces, square-free words, non-repetitive sequences
We re-examine previous constructions of infinite binary words containing few distinct squares with the goal of finding the "simplest", in a certain sense. We exhibit several new constructions. Rather than using tedious case-based arguments…
A binary shuffle square is a binary word of even length that can be partitioned into two disjoint, identical subwords. Huang, Nam, Thaper, and the first author conjectured that as $n\rightarrow \infty$, asymptotically half of all binary…
A problem of reconstructing words from their subwords involves determining the minimum amount of information needed, such as multisets of scattered subwords of a specific length or the frequency of scattered subwords from a given set, in…
Given an infinite linear group with a finite set of generators, we show that the shortest word length of an element of infinite order has an upper bound that depends only on the number of generators and the degree. This provides a…
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…
A square is the concatenation of a nonempty word with itself. A word has period p if its letters at distance p match. The exponent of a nonempty word is the quotient of its length over its smallest period. In this article we give a proof of…
We study the problems of finding a shortest synchronizing word and its length for a given prefix code. This is done in two different settings: when the code is defined by an arbitrary decoder recognizing its star and when the code is…
We construct a record-breaking binary code of length 17, minimal distance 6, constant weight 6, and containing 113 codewords.
Recently, a short and elegant proof was presented showing that a binary word of length $n$ contains at most $n-3$ runs. Here we show, using the same technique and a computer search, that the number of runs in a binary word of length $n$ is…
The separating words problem asks for the size of the smallest DFA needed to distinguish between two words of length <= n (by accepting one and rejecting the other). In this paper we survey what is known and unknown about the problem,…
A short survey about combinatorics on words and algorithmic methods in a ring. Special attention is given to Shirshov's results. Adopted for undegraduate students.
We relate binary words with a given number of subsequences to continued fractions of rational numbers with a given denominator. We deduce that there are binary strings of length $O(\log n \log \log n)$ with exactly $n$ subsequences; this…
For a word $S$, let $f(S)$ be the largest integer $m$ such that there are two disjoints identical (scattered) subwords of length $m$. Let $f(n, \Sigma) = \min \{f(S): S \text{is of length} n, \text{over alphabet} \Sigma \}$. Here, it is…
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…