English

Asymptotically half of binary words are shuffle squares

Combinatorics 2025-12-16 v1

Abstract

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 nn\rightarrow \infty, asymptotically half of all binary words of length 2n2n are shuffle squares. We prove this conjecture in a strong form, by showing that the number of binary shuffle squares of length 2n2n is (12o(n1/15))22n(\frac{1}{2} - o(n^{-1/15})) 2^{2n}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.12077,
  title  = {Asymptotically half of binary words are shuffle squares},
  author = {Xiaoyu He and Logan Post},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.12077},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

22 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:23:02.667Z