English

Application of entropy compression in pattern avoidance

Discrete Mathematics 2013-01-10 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

In combinatorics on words, a word ww over an alphabet Σ\Sigma is said to avoid a pattern pp over an alphabet Δ\Delta if there is no factor ff of ww such that f=(p)f= (p) where h:ΔΣh: \Delta^*\to\Sigma^* is a non-erasing morphism. A pattern pp is said to be kk-avoidable if there exists an infinite word over a kk-letter alphabet that avoids pp. We give a positive answer to Problem 3.3.2 in Lothaire's book "Algebraic combinatorics on words", that is, every pattern with kk variables of length at least 2k2^k (resp. 3×2k13\times2^{k-1}) is 3-avoidable (resp. 2-avoidable). This improves previous bounds due to Bell and Goh, and Rampersad.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1301.1873,
  title  = {Application of entropy compression in pattern avoidance},
  author = {Pascal Ochem and Alexandre Pinlou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.1873},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T23:06:40.569Z