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Related papers: Avoiding large squares in infinite binary words

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The avoidability of binary patterns by binary cube-free words is investigated and the exact bound between unavoidable and avoidable patterns is found. All avoidable patterns are shown to be D0L-avoidable. For avoidable patterns, the growth…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2019-02-20 Robert Mercas , Pascal Ochem , Alexei V. Samsonov , Arseny M. Shur

We study the structure of the language of binary cube-free words. Namely, we are interested in the cube-free words that cannot be infinitely extended preserving cube-freeness. We show the existence of such words with arbitrarily long finite…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2011-08-19 Elena A. Petrova , Arseny M. Shur

A word is square-free if it does not contain nonempty factors of the form $XX$. In 1906 Thue proved that there exist arbitrarily long square-free words over a $3$-letter alphabet. It was proved recently [7] that among these words there are…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-05-04 Jarosław Grytczuk , Hubert Kordulewski , Bartłomiej Pawlik

We study words that barely avoid repetitions, for several senses of "barely". A squarefree (respectively, overlap-free, cubefree) word is irreducible if removing any one of its interior letters creates a square (respectively, overlap,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-08-25 Benjamin Przybocki

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…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2017-08-23 F. Blanchet-Sadri , S. Osborne

We prove that every concatenation of $10$ or more binary squares contains an overlap. The bound $10$ is best possible. In contrast, over a ternary alphabet, there are infinitely long overlap-free words that consist of a concatenation of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-28 Jeffrey Shallit

The notion of Abelian complexity of infinite words was recently used by the three last authors to investigate various Abelian properties of words. In particular, using van der Waerden's theorem, they proved that if a word avoids Abelian…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-05-17 Julien Cassaigne , Gwénaël Richomme , Kalle Saari , Luca Q. Zamboni

We consider avoiding squares and overlaps over the natural numbers, using a greedy algorithm that chooses the least possible integer at each step; the word generated is lexicographically least among all such infinite words. In the case of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2009-04-12 Mathieu Guay-Paquet , Jeffrey Shallit

A word is square-free if it does not contain any square (a word of the form $XX$), and is extremal square-free if it cannot be extended to a new square-free word by inserting a single letter at any position. Grytczuk, Kordulewski, and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-02-07 Letong Hong , Shengtong Zhang

We consider the following novel variation on a classical avoidance problem from combinatorics on words: instead of avoiding repetitions in all factors of a word, we avoid repetitions in all factors where each individual factor is considered…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2013-03-19 Hamoon Mousavi , Jeffrey Shallit

This paper concerns the avoidability of abelian and additive powers in infinite rich words. In particular, we construct an infinite additive $5$-power-free rich word over $\{0,1\}$ and an infinite additive $4$-power-free rich word over…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-02-18 Jonathan Andrade , Lucas Mol

In previous work, Currie and Rampersad showed that the growth of the number of binary words avoiding the pattern xxx^R was intermediate between polynomial and exponential. We now show that the same holds for the growth of the number of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-08-13 James D. Currie , Narad Rampersad

In this paper we study the enumeration and the construction, according to the number of ones, of particular binary words avoiding a fixed pattern. The growth of such words can be described by particular jumping and marked succession rules.…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2011-08-19 Stefano Bilotta , Elisa Pergola , Renzo Pinzani

We generalise our earlier work on the number of squares in binary recurrence sequences, $\left\{ y_{k} \right\}_{k \geq -\infty}$. In the notation of our previous papers, here we consider the case when $N_{\alpha}$ is any negative integer…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2025-04-10 Paul M Voutier

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

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-05-21 James D. Currie , Jesse T. Johnson

We consider words over a binary alphabet. A word $w$ is overlap-free if it does not have factors (blocks of consecutive letters) of the form $uvuvu$ for nonempty $u$. Let $M(w)$ denote the number of positions that are middle positions of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-08-11 Tero Harju

A power is a word of the form $\underbrace{uu...u}_{k \; \text{times}}$, where $u$ is a word and $k$ is a positive integer and a square is a word of the form $uu$. Fraenkel and Simpson conjectured in 1998 that the number of distinct squares…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-09-16 Shuo Li

Using a new approach based on automatic sequences, logic, and a decision procedure, we reprove some old theorems about circularly squarefree words and unbordered conjugates in a new and simpler way. Furthermore, we prove three new results…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2019-04-18 Trevor Clokie , Daniel Gabric , Jeffrey Shallit

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-16 Xiaoyu He , Logan Post

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.…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2015-05-14 Marcin Kubica , Jakub Radoszewski , Wojciech Rytter , Tomasz Walen