Related papers: Low complexity binary words avoiding $(5/2)^+$-pow…
Any finite word $w$ of length $n$ contains at most $n+1$ distinct palindromic factors. If the bound $n+1$ is reached, the word $w$ is called rich. The number of rich words of length $n$ over an alphabet of cardinality $q$ is denoted…
Complementary symmetric Rote sequences are binary sequences which have factor complexity $\mathcal{C}(n) = 2n$ for all integers $n \geq 1$ and whose languages are closed under the exchange of letters. These sequences are intimately linked…
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…
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…
The (bitwise) complement $\overline{x}$ of a binary word $x$ is obtained by changing each $0$ in $x$ to $1$ and vice versa. An $\textit{antisquare}$ is a nonempty word of the form $x\, \overline{x}$. In this paper, we study infinite binary…
We find the lexicographically least infinite binary rich word having critical exponent $2+\sqrt{2}/2$
Rich words are characterized by containing the maximum possible number of distinct palindromes. Several characteristic properties of rich words have been studied; yet the analysis of repetitions in rich words still involves some interesting…
The following special case of a conjecture by Loehr and Warrington was proved recently by Ekhad, Vatter, and Zeilberger: There are 10^n zero-sum words of length 5n in the alphabet {+3,-2} such that no zero-sum consecutive subword that…
Prefix normal words are binary words that have no factor with more $1$s than the prefix of the same length. Finite prefix normal words were introduced in [Fici and Lipt\'ak, DLT 2011]. In this paper, we study infinite prefix normal words…
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…
Smooth words over an alphabet of non-negative integers $\{a,b\}$ are infinite words that are infinitely derivable, the most famous example being the Oldenburger-Kolakoski word over $\{1,2\}$. The main way to study their language is to…
Over an alphabet of size 3 we construct an infinite balanced word with critical exponent 2+sqrt(2)/2. Over an alphabet of size 4 we construct an infinite balanced word with critical exponent (5+sqrt(5))/4. Over larger alphabets, we give…
The recently confirmed Dejean's conjecture about the threshold between avoidable and unavoidable powers of words gave rise to interesting and challenging problems on the structure and growth of threshold words. Over any finite alphabet with…
Shallit and Wang studied deterministic automatic complexity of words. They showed that the automatic Hausdorff dimension $I(\mathbf t)$ of the infinite Thue word satisfies $1/3\le I(\mathbf t)\le 2/3$. We improve that result by showing that…
We study the set of finite words with zero palindromic defect, i.e., words rich in palindromes. This set is factorial, but not recurrent. We focus on description of pairs of rich words which cannot occur simultaneously as factors of a…
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…
Free words are elements of a free monoid, generated over an alphabet via the binary operation of concatenation. Casually speaking, a free word is a finite string of letters. Henceforth, we simply refer to them as words. Motivated by recent…
The avoidability, or unavoidability of patterns in words over finite alphabets has been studied extensively. A word (pattern) over a finite set is said to be unavoidable if, for all but finitely many words, there exists a morphism mapping…
We find generating functions for the number of words avoiding certain patterns or sets of patterns on at most 2 distinct letters and determine which of them are equally avoided. We also find the exact number of words avoiding certain…
In the algebraic theory of codes and formal languages, the set $Q$ of all primitive words over some alphabet $\zi $ has received special interest. With this survey article we give an overview about relevant research to this topic during the…