On ternary square-free circular words
Formal Languages and Automata Theory
2010-10-26 v1 Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
Abstract
Circular words are cyclically ordered finite sequences of letters. We give a computer-free proof of the following result by Currie: square-free circular words over the ternary alphabet exist for all lengths except for 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, and 17. Our proof reveals an interesting connection between ternary square-free circular words and closed walks in the graph. In addition, our proof implies an exponential lower bound on the number of such circular words of length and allows one to list all lengths for which such a circular word is unique up to isomorphism.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1009.5759,
title = {On ternary square-free circular words},
author = {Arseny M. Shur},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.5759},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
11 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Presented at NORCOM'2010, submitted to EJC