Related papers: The Entropy of Square-Free Words

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.…

We show that the number of length-n words over a k-letter alphabet having no even palindromic prefix is the same as the number of length-n unbordered words, by constructing an explicit bijection between the two sets. A slightly different…

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…

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…

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

A new upper bound on the relative entropy is derived as a function of the total variation distance for probability measures defined on a common finite alphabet. The bound improves a previously reported bound by Csisz\'ar and Talata. It is…

A language L over a finite alphabet is growth-sensitive (or entropy sensitive) if forbidding any set of subwords F yields a sub-language L^F whose exponential growth rate (entropy) is smaller than that of L. Let (X, E, l) be an infinite,…

For any infinite word $w$ on a finite alphabet $A$, the complexity function $p_w$ of $w$ is the sequence counting, for each non-negative $n$, the number $p_w(n)$ of words of length $n$ on the alphabet $A$ that are factors of the infinite…

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 the present paper we show that there exist infinitely many consecutive square-free numbers of the form $x^2+y^2+1$, $x^2+y^2+2$. We also give an asymptotic formula for the number of pairs of positive integers $x, y \leq H$ such that…

An abelian square is the concatenation of two words that are anagrams of one another. A word of length $n$ can contain $\Theta(n^2)$ distinct factors that are abelian squares. We study infinite words such that the number of abelian square…

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…

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…

Let Q be the set of primitive words over a finite alphabet with at least two symbols. We characterize a class of primitive words, Q_I, referred to as ins-robust primitive words, which remain primitive on insertion of any letter from the…

We introduce the notions of topological entropy of a formal language and of a topological automaton. We show that the entropy function is surjective and bound the entropy of languages accepted by deterministic {\epsilon}-free push-down…

We show that the predictability of letters in written English texts depends strongly on their position in the word. The first letters are usually the least easy to predict. This agrees with the intuitive notion that words are well defined…

Let $R(n)$ denote the number of rich words of length $n$ over a given finite alphabet. In 2017 it was proved that $\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \sqrt[n]{R(n)}=1$; it means the number of rich words has a subexponential growth. However, up to…

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…

Let Q be a non-singular diagonal quadratic form in at least four variables. We provide upper bounds for the number of integer solutions to the equation Q=0, which lie in a box with sides of length 2B, as B tends to infinity. The estimates…

We prove that the `connective constant' for ternary square-free words is at least $2^{1/17} = 1.0416 ... $, improving on Brinkhuis and Brandenburg's lower bounds of $2^{1/24}=1.0293 ...$ and $2^{1/22}=1.032 ...$ respectively. This is the…