PLEASE NOTE: After this paper was prepared, we learned that all our results appeared (albeit with different proofs) in a paper of F. M. Dekking, On repetitions of blocks in binary sequences, J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 20 (1976), 292--299
Entringer, Jackson, and Schatz conjectured in 1974 that every infinite cubefree binary word contains arbitrarily long squares. In this paper we show this conjecture is false: there exist infinite cubefree binary words avoiding all squares xx with |x| >= 4, and the number 4 is best possible. However, the Entringer-Jackson-Schatz conjecture is true if "cubefree" is replaced with "overlap-free".
We construct infinite cubefree binary words containing exponentially many distinct squares of length n. We also show that for every positive integer n, there is a cubefree binary square of length 2n.
A word is cubefree if it contains no non-empty subword of the form xxx. A morphism h : Sigma^* -> Sigma^* is k-uniform if h(a) has length k for all a in Sigma. A morphism is cubefree if it maps cubefree words to cubefree words. We show that for all k >= 0 there exists a k-uniform cubefree binary morphism.
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, cube). A squarefree (respectively, overlap-free, cubefree) word is delicate if changing any one of its letters creates a square (respectively, overlap, cube). We classify the lengths of irreducible and delicate squarefree, overlap-free, and cubefree words over binary and ternary alphabets.
We review the recent progress in the investigation of powerfree words, with particular emphasis on binary cubefree and ternary squarefree words. Besides various bounds on the entropy, we provide bounds on letter frequencies and consider their empirical distribution obtained by an enumeration of binary cubefree words up to length 80.
It is known that the number of overlap-free binary words of length n grows polynomially, while the number of cubefree binary words grows exponentially. We show that the dividing line between polynomial and exponential growth is 7/3. More precisely, there are only polynomially many binary words of length n that avoid 7/3-powers, but there are exponentially many binary words of length n that avoid (7/3+)-powers. This answers an open question of Kobayashi from 1986.
We consider three aspects of avoiding large squares in infinite binary words. First, we construct an infinite binary word avoiding both cubes xxx and squares yy with |y| >= 4; our construction is somewhat simpler than the original construction of Dekking. Second, we construct an infinite binary word avoiding all squares except 00, 11, and 0101; our construction is somewhat simpler than the original construction of Fraenkel and Simpson. In both cases, we also show how to modify our construction to obtain exponentially many words of length n with the given avoidance properties. Finally, we answe…
In this paper we propose an algorithm to generate binary words with no more 0's than 1's having a fixed number of 1's and avoiding the pattern $(10)^j1$ for any fixed $j \geq 1$. We will prove that this generation is exhaustive, that is, all such binary words are generated.
Catalan words are particular growth-restricted words over the set of non-negative integers, and they represent still another combinatorial class counted by the Catalan numbers. We study the distribution of descents on the sets of Catalan words avoiding a pattern of length at most three: for each such a pattern $p$ we provide a bivariate generating function where the coefficient of $x^ny^k$ in its series expansion is the number of length $n$ Catalan words with $k$ descents and avoiding $p$. As a byproduct, we enumerate the set of Catalan words avoiding $p$, and we provide the popularity of desc…
Based on BRGC inspired order relations we give Gray codes and a generating algorithm for $q$-ary words avoiding a prescribed factor. These generalize an early 2001 result and a very recent one published by some of the present authors, and can be seen as an alternative to those of Squire published in 1996. Among the involved tools, we make use of generalized BRGC order relations, ultimate periodicity of infinite words, and word matching techniques.
Building an infinite square-free word by appending one letter at a time while simultaneously avoiding the creation of squares is most likely to fail. When the alphabet has two letters this approach is impossible. When the alphabet has three or more letters, one will most probably create a word in which the addition of any letter invariably creates a square. When one restricts the set of undesired squares to a finite one, this can be possible. We study the constraints on the alphabet and the set of squares which permit this approach to work.
A finite word $w$ is an abelian square if $w = xx^\prime$ with $x^\prime$ a permutation of $x$. In 1972, Entringer, Jackson, and Schatz proved that every binary word of length $k^2 + 6k$ contains an abelian square of length $\geq 2k$. We use Cartesian lattice paths to characterize abelian squares in binary sequences, and construct a binary word of length $q(q+1)$ avoiding abelian squares of length $\geq 2\sqrt{2q(q+1)}$ or greater. We thus prove that the length of the longest binary word avoiding abelian squares of length $2k$ is $Θ(k^2)$.
We consider avoiding mesosomes -- that is, words of the form $xx'$ with $x'$ a conjugate of $x$ that is different from $x$ -- over a binary alphabet. We give a structure theorem for mesosome-avoiding words, count how many there are, characterize all the infinite mesosome-avoiding words, and determine the minimal forbidden words.
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 $k$-powers for some integer $k$, then its Abelian complexity is unbounded. This suggests the following question: How frequently do Abelian $k$-powers occur in a word having bounded Abelian complexity? In particular, does every uniformly recurrent word having bounded Abelian complexity begin in an Abelian $k$-power? While this is true for various classes of unif…
We construct an infinite word $w$ over the $5$-letter alphabet such that for every factor $f$ of $w$ of length at least two, there exists a cyclic permutation of $f$ that is not a factor of $w$. In other words, $w$ does not contain a non-trivial conjugacy class. This proves the conjecture in Gamard et al. [TCS 2018]
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. This approach enables us to obtain an algorithm which constructs all binary words having a fixed number of ones and then kills those containing the forbidden pattern.
In 2005, Rampersad and the second author proved a number of theorems about infinite words x with the property that if w is any sufficiently long finite factor of x, then its reversal w^R is not a factor of x. In this note we revisit these results, reproving them in more generality, using machine computations only. Two different techniques are presented.
In 2007, Grytczuk conjecture that for any sequence $(\ell_i)_{i\ge1}$ of alphabets of size $3$ there exists a square-free infinite word $w$ such that for all $i$, the $i$-th letter of $w$ belongs to $\ell_i$. The result of Thue of 1906 implies that there is an infinite square-free word if all the $\ell_i$ are identical. On the other, hand Grytczuk, Przybyło and Zhu showed in 2011 that it also holds if the $\ell_i$ are of size $4$ instead of $3$. In this article, we first show that if the lists are of size $4$, the number of square-free words is at least $2.45^n$ (the previous similar bound was…
The method we have applied in "A. Bernini, L. Ferrari, R. Pinzani, Enumerating permutations avoiding three Babson-Steingrimsson patterns, Ann. Comb. 9 (2005), 137--162" to count pattern avoiding permutations is adapted to words. As an application, we enumerate several classes of words simultaneously avoiding two generalized patterns of length 3.
A word $w=w_1w_2\cdots w_n$ is alternating if either $w_1<w_2>w_3<w_4>\cdots$ (when the word is up-down) or $w_1>w_2<w_3>w_4<\cdots$ (when the word is down-up). In this paper, we initiate the study of (pattern-avoiding) alternating words. We enumerate up-down (equivalently, down-up) words via finding a bijection with order ideals of a certain poset. Further, we show that the number of 123-avoiding up-down words of even length is given by the Narayana numbers, which is also the case, shown by us bijectively, with 132-avoiding up-down words of even length. We also give formulas for enumerating a…
We find finite-state recurrences to enumerate the words on the alphabet $[n]^r$ which avoid the patterns 123 and $1k(k-1)\dots2$, and, separately, the words which avoid the patterns 1234 and $1k(k-1)\dots2$.
We examine words w satisfying the following property: if x is a subword of w and |x| is at least k for some fixed k, then the reversal of x is not a subword of w.
This work is a continuation of some recent articles presenting enumerative results for Catalan words avoiding one or a pair of consecutive or classical patterns of length $3$. More precisely, we provide systematically the bivariate generating function for the number of Catalan words avoiding a given pair of relations with respect to the length and the number of descents. We also present several constructive bijections preserving the number of descents. As a byproduct, we deduce the generating function for the total number of descents on all Catalan words of a given length and avoiding a pair o…
Recently, Grytczuk, Kordulewski, and Niewiadomski defined an extremal word over an alphabet $\mathbb{A}$ to be a word with the property that inserting any letter from $\mathbb{A}$ at any position in the word yields a given pattern. In this paper, we determine the number of extremal $XY_1XY_2X\dots XY_tX$-avoiding words on a $k$-letter alphabet. We also derive a lower bound on the shortest possible length of an extremal square-free word on a $k$-letter alphabet that grows exponentially in $k$.
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 extend Carpi's result by constructing uncountably many words that avoid squares in arithmetic progressions of odd difference. We also construct infinite words avoiding overlaps and infinite words avoiding arbitrarily large squares in arithmetic progressions of odd difference. We use these words to construct labelings of the 2-dimensional integer lattice such that…
A word $w=w_1w_2\cdots w_n$ is alternating if either $w_1<w_2>w_3<w_4>\cdots$ (when the word is up-down) or $w_1>w_2<w_3>w_4<\cdots$ (when the word is down-up). The study of alternating words avoiding classical permutation patterns was initiated by the authors in~\cite{GKZ}, where, in particular, it was shown that 123-avoiding up-down words of even length are counted by the Narayana numbers. However, not much was understood on the structure of 123-avoiding up-down words. In this paper, we fill in this gap by introducing the notion of a cut-pair that allows us to subdivide the set of words in q…
Valid hook configurations are combinatorial objects used to understand West's stack sorting map as well as cumulants in noncommutative probability theory. We show a bijection between reduced valid hook configurations on 312-avoiding permutations with the maximal allowed number of points and 3D-Dyck words, proving a conjecture of Sankar's. We extend to a bijection between all 312-avoiding reduced valid hook configurations and 3D-Dyck words with specified modifications. We show how these can be counted in terms of the number of 3D-Dyck words of length 3k in which exactly i Y's do not have an X i…
We consider sets of factors that can be avoided in square-free words on two-generator free groups. The elements of the group are presented in terms of 0,1,2,3 such that 0 and 2 (resp.,1 and 3) are inverses of each other so that 02, 20, 13 and 31 do not occur in a reduced word. A Dean word is a reduced word that does not contain occurrences of $uu$ for any nonempty $u$. Dean showed in 1965 that there exist infinite square-free reduced words. We show that if $w$ is a Dean word of length at least 59 then there are at most six reduced words of length 3 avoided by $w$. We construct an infinite Dean…
In 1982, Seebold showed that the only overlap-free binary words that are the fixed points of non-identity morphisms are the Thue-Morse word and its complement. We strengthen Seebold's result by showing that the same result holds if the term 'overlap-free' is replaced with '7/3-power-free'. Furthermore, the number 7/3 is best possible.
We show that there exists an infinite word over the alphabet {0, 1, 3, 4} containing no three consecutive blocks of the same size and the same sum. This answers an open problem of Pirillo and Varricchio from 1994.
In this paper we study graphs defined by pattern-avoiding words. Word-representable graphs have been studied extensively following their introduction in 2000 and are the subject of a book published by Kitaev in 2015. Recently there has been interest in studying graphs represented by pattern-avoiding words. In particular, in 2016, Gao, Kitaev, and Zhang investigated 132-representable graphs, that is, word-representable graphs that can be represented by a word which avoids the pattern 132. They proved that all 132- representable graphs are circle graphs and provided examples and properties of 13…
Recently, Bill Chen, together with his disciples Alvin Dai and Robin Zhou, discovered, and very elegantly proved, an algebraic equation satisfied by the generating function enumerating 123-avoiding words with two occurrences of each of 1, ..., n. Inspired by this result, we present an algorithm for finding such an algebraic equation for the ordinary generating function enumerating 123-avoiding words with exactly r occurrences of each of 1, ... n for any positive integer r, thereby proving that they are algebraic and not merely D-finite (a fact that is promised by WZ theory). Our algorithm cons…
The notion of a $p$-Riordan graph generalizes that of a Riordan graph, which, in turn, generalizes the notions of a Pascal graph and a Toeplitz graph. In this paper we introduce the notion of a $p$-Riordan word, and show how to encode $p$-Riordan graphs by $p$-Riordan words. For special important cases of Riordan graphs (the case $p=2$) and oriented Riordan graphs (the case $p=3$) we provide alternative encodings in terms of pattern-avoiding permutations and certain balanced words, respectively. As a bi-product of our studies, we provide an alternative proof of a known enumerative result on cl…
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 binary words avoiding the pattern xx^Rx. Curiously, the analysis for xx^Rx is much simpler than that for xxx^R. We derive our results by giving a bijection between the set of binary words avoiding xx^Rx and a class of sequences closely related to the class of "strongly unimodal sequences."
We construct an infinite binary word with critical exponent 3 that avoids abelian 4-powers. Our method gives an algorithm to determine if certain types of morphic sequences avoid additive powers. We also show that there are $Ω(1.172^n)$ binary words of length $n$ that avoid abelian 4-powers, which improves on previous estimates.
We find generating functions for the number of words avoiding certain patterns or sets of patterns on at most 2 distinct letters and determine which of them are equally avoided. We also find the exact number of words avoiding certain patterns and provide bijective proofs for the resulting formulas.
We consider the enumeration of ordered set partitions avoiding a permutation pattern, as introduced by Godbole, Goyt, Herdan and Pudwell. Let $\op_{n,k}(p)$ be the number of ordered set partitions of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ into $k$ blocks that avoid a permutation pattern $p$. We establish an explicit identity between the number $\op_{n,k}(p)$ and the numbers of words avoiding the inverse of $p$. This identity allows us to easily translate results on pattern-avoiding words obtained in earlier works into equivalent results on pattern-avoiding ordered set partitions. In particular, \emph{(a)} we dete…
In combinatorics of words, a concatenation of $k$ consecutive equal blocks is called a power of order $k$. In this paper we take a different point of view and define an anti-power of order $k$ as a concatenation of $k$ consecutive pairwise distinct blocks of the same length. As a main result, we show that every infinite word contains powers of any order or anti-powers of any order. That is, the existence of powers or anti-powers is an unavoidable regularity. Indeed, we prove a stronger result, which relates the density of anti-powers to the existence of a factor that occurs with arbitrary expo…
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 avoiding squares, the word is 01020103..., the familiar ruler function, and is generated by iterating a uniform morphism. The case of overlaps is more challenging. We give an explicitly-defined morphism phi : N* -> N* that generates the lexicographically least infinite overlap-free word by iteration. Furthermore, we show that for all h,k in N with h <= k, the…
We say that a word $w$ on a totally ordered alphabet avoids the word $v$ if there are no subsequences in $w$ order-equivalent to $v$. In this paper we suggest a new approach to the enumeration of words on at most $k$ letters avoiding a given pattern. By studying an automaton which for fixed $k$ generates the words avoiding a given pattern we derive several previously known results for these kind of problems, as well as many new. In particular, we give a simple proof of the formula \cite{Reg1998} for exact asymptotics for the number of words on $k$ letters of length $n$ that avoids the pattern …
We start by considering binary words containing the minimum possible numbers of squares and antisquares (where an antisquare is a word of the form $x \overline{x}$), and we completely classify which possibilities can occur. We consider avoiding $x p(x)$, where $p$ is any permutation of the underlying alphabet, and $x t(x)$, where $t$ is any transformation of the underlying alphabet. Finally, we prove the existence of an infinite binary word simultaneously avoiding all occurrences of $x h(x)$ for every nonerasing morphism $h$ and all sufficiently large words $x$.
A word is "crucial" with respect to a given set of "prohibited words" (or simply "prohibitions") if it avoids the prohibitions but it cannot be extended to the right by any letter of its alphabet without creating a prohibition. A "minimal crucial word" is a crucial word of the shortest length. A word W contains an "abelian k-th power" if W has a factor of the form X_1X_2...X_k where X_i is a permutation of X_1 for 2<= i <= k. When k=2 or 3, one deals with "abelian squares" and "abelian cubes", respectively. In 2004 (arXiv:math/0205217), Evdokimov and Kitaev showed that a minimal crucial word o…
Two finite words $u,v$ are 2-binomially equivalent if, for all words $x$ of length at most 2, the number of occurrences of $x$ as a (scattered) subword of $u$ is equal to the number of occurrences of $x$ in $v$. This notion is a refinement of the usual abelian equivalence. A 2-binomial square is a word $uv$ where $u$ and $v$ are 2-binomially equivalent. In this paper, considering pure morphic words, we prove that 2-binomial squares (resp. cubes) are avoidable over a 3-letter (resp. 2-letter) alphabet. The sizes of the alphabets are optimal.
We study a conjecture linking ultimate periodicity of infnite words to the existence of colorings on finite words avoiding monochromatic factorisation of suffixes, with the extra condition that the ordered concatenation of elements of this factorisation remains monochromatic. This type of results shows the limits of Ramsey theory in the context of combinatorics on words. We show some reductions of the problem and the example of the Zimin word. Using the new notion of consecutive length, we show that words avoiding large squares fulfill the conjecture.
Ochem, Rampersad, and Shallit gave various examples of infinite words avoiding what they called approximate repetitions. An approximate repetition is a factor of the form xx', where x and x' are close to being identical. In their work, they measured the similarity of x and x' using either the Hamming distance or the edit distance. In this paper, we show the existence of words avoiding approximate repetitions, where the measure of similarity between adjacent factors is based on the length of the longest common subsequence. Our principal technique is the so-called "entropy compression" method, w…
In [GM] Guibert and Mansour studied involutions on n letters avoiding (or containing exactly once) 132 and avoiding (or containing exactly once) an arbitrary pattern on k letters. They also established a bijection between 132-avoiding involutions and Dyck word prefixes of same length. Extending this bijection to bilateral words allows to determine more parameters; in particular, we consider the number of inversions and rises of the involutions onto the words. This is the starting point for considering two different directions: even/odd involutions and statistics of some generalized patterns. T…
We find exact formulas and/or generating functions for the number of words avoiding 3-letter generalized multipermutation patterns and find which of them are equally avoided.
We develop a method for counting words subject to various restrictions by finding a combinatorial interpretation for a product of weighted sums of Laguerre polynomials with parameter α= -1. We describe how such a series can be computed by finding an appropriate ordinary generating function and applying a certain transformation. We use this technique to find the generating function for the number of k-ary words avoiding any vincular pattern that has only ones, as well as words cyclically avoiding vincular patterns with only ones whose runs of ones between dashes are all of equal length.
The notion of a word-representable graph has been studied in a series of papers in the literature. A graph $G=(V,E)$ is word-representable if there exists a word $w$ over the alphabet $V$ such that letters $x$ and $y$ alternate in $w$ if and only if $xy$ is an edge in $E$. If $V =\{1, \ldots, n\}$, this is equivalent to saying that $G$ is word-representable if for all $x,y \in \{1, \ldots, n\}$, $xy \in E$ if and only if the subword $w_{\{x,y\}}$ of $w$ consisting of all occurrences of $x$ or $y$ in $w$ has no consecutive occurrence of the pattern 11. In this paper, we introduce the study of $…