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.
Sierpinski's triangle is a fractal and the Prouhet-Thue-Morse word is sufficiently chaotic to avoid cubes. Here we observe that there is at least a tenuous connection between them: the Sierpinski triangle is evident in Pascal's triangle mod 2 whose inverse, as an infinite lower-triangular matrix, involves the Prouhet-Thue-Morse word.
We show that the 2-abelian complexity of the infinite Thue-Morse word is 2-regular, and other properties of the 2-abelian complexity, most notably that it is a concatenation of palindromes of increasing length. We also show sharp bounds for the length of unique extensions of factors of size n, occurring in the Thue-Morse word.
We give an in depth analysis of the subwords of the Thue-Morse sequence. This allows us to prove that there are infinitely many injective primitive substitutions with Perron-Frobenius eigenvalue 2 that generate a symbolic dynamical system topologically conjugate to the Thue-Morse dynamical system.
Given a countable set X (usually taken to be the natural numbers or the integers), an infinite permutation πof X is a linear ordering of X. This paper investigates the combinatorial complexity of the infinite permutation on the natural numbers associated with the well-known and well-studied Thue-Morse word. A formula for the complexity is established by studying patterns in subpermutations and the action of the Thue-Morse morphism on the subpermutations.
The notion of palindromic length of a finite word, as well as an infinite word, was first introduced by Frid, Puzynina and Zamboni\cite{FRID2013737}. They conjectured that if the palindromic length of an infinite word is bounded, then this sequence is eventually periodic. In this article, we give a formal expression of the palindromic length of Thue-Morse sequence and find all sequences which have the same palindromic length as Thue-Morse's.
We describe factor frequencies of the generalized Thue-Morse word t_{b,m} defined for integers b greater than 1, m greater than 0 as the fixed point starting in 0 of the morphism ϕ_{b,m} given by ϕ_{b,m}(k)=k(k+1)...(k+b-1), where k = 0,1,..., m-1 and where the letters are expressed modulo m. We use the result of A. Frid, On the frequency of factors in a D0L word, Journal of Automata, Languages and Combinatorics 3 (1998), 29-41 and the study of generalized Thue-Morse words by S. Starosta, Generalized Thue-Morse words and palindromic richness, arXiv:1104.2476v2 [math.CO].
In this paper, we study the abelian complexity $ρ_n^{ab}(\mathbf{t}^{(k)})$ of generalized Thue-Morse sequences $\mathbf{t}^{(k)}$. We obtain the exact value of $ρ_n^{ab}(\mathbf{t}^{(k)})$ for every integer $n\geq k$. Consequently, $ρ_n^{ab}(\mathbf{t}^{(k)})$ is ultimately periodic with the period $k$. Moreover, we show that the abelian complexities of a class of infinite sequences are $k$-automatic.
Automatic sequences such as the Thue-Morse sequence and the Rudin-Shapiro sequence are highly predictable and thus not suitable in cryptography. In particular, they have small expansion complexity. However, they still have a large maximum order complexity. Certain subsequences of automatic sequences are not automatic anymore and may be attractive candidates for applications in cryptography. In this paper we show that subsequences along the squares of certain pattern sequences including the Thue-Morse sequence and the Rudin-Shapiro sequence have also large maximum order complexity but do not su…
In this paper, we study the additive complexity $ρ^{+}_{\mathbf{t}}(n)$ of a Thue-Morse like sequence $\mathbf{t}=σ^{\infty}(0)$ with the morphism $σ: 0\to 01, 1\to 12, 2\to 20$. We show that $ρ^{+}_{\mathbf{t}}(n)=2\lfloor\log_2(n)\rfloor+3$ for all integers $n\geq 1$. Consequently, $(ρ_{\mathbf{t}}(n))_{n\geq 1}$ is a $2$-regular sequence.
In this paper, we study the $2$-binomial complexity $b_{\mathbf{t}_{m},2}(n)$ of the generalized Thue-Morse words $\mathbf{t}_{m}$ for every integer $m\geq 3$. We obtain the exact value of $b_{\mathbf{t}_{m},2}(n)$ for every integer $n\geq m^{2}$. As a consequence, $b_{\mathbf{t}_{m},2}(n)$ is ultimately periodic with period $m^{2}$. This result partially answers a question of M. Lejeune, J. Leroy and M. Rigo [Computing the $k$-binomial complexity of the Thue-Morse word, J. Comb. Theory Ser. A, {\bf 176} (2020) 105284].
We present new methods of generating Prouhet-Tarry-Escott partitions of arbitrarily large regularity. One of these methods generalizes the construction of the Thue-Morse sequence to finite alphabets with more than two letters. We show how one can use such partitions to (theoretically) pour the same volume coffee from an urn into a finite number of cups so that each cup gets almost the same amount of caffeine.
It is a classical fact that the exponential function is solution of the integral equation $ \int_0^X f(x)dx + f(0) =f(X)$. If we slightly modify this equation to $ \int_0^X f(x)dx+f(0)=f(αX)$ with $α\in ]0,1[$, it seems that no classical techniques apply to yields solutions. In this article, we consider the parameter $α=1/2$. We will show the existence of a solution wich takes the values of the Thue-Morse sequence on the odd integers.
In this paper we study the privileged complexity function of the Thue-Morse word. We prove a recursive formula describing this function, and using the formula we show that the function is unbounded and that the values of the function have arbitrarily large gaps of zeros. This demonstrates that the privileged complexity function of an infinite word can drastically differ from its palindromic complexity function, even though there are relations between these functions. Further we study the behavior of palindromes and privileged words in infinite words and the relation between rich words and priv…
The length $a(n)$ of the longest common subsequence of the $n$'th Thue-Morse word and its bitwise complement is studied. An open problem suggested by Jean Berstel in 2006 is to find a formula for $a(n)$. In this paper we prove new lower bounds on $a(n)$ by explicitly constructing a common subsequence between the Thue-Morse words and their bitwise complement. We obtain the lower bound $a(n) = 2^{n}(1-o(1))$, saying that when $n$ grows large, the fraction of omitted symbols in the longest common subsequence of the $n$'th Thue-Morse word and its bitwise complement goes to $0$. We further generali…
We prove that the generalized Thue-Morse word $\mathbf{t}_{b,m}$ defined for $b \geq 2$ and $m \geq 1$ as $\mathbf{t}_{b,m} = (s_b(n) \mod m)_{n=0}^{+\infty}$, where $s_b(n)$ denotes the sum of digits in the base-$b$ representation of the integer $n$, has its language closed under all elements of a group $D_m$ isomorphic to the dihedral group of order $2m$ consisting of morphisms and antimorphisms. Considering simultaneously antimorphisms $Θ\in D_m$, we show that $\mathbf{t}_{b,m}$ is saturated by $Θ$-palindromes up to the highest possible level. Using the terminology generalizing the notion o…
We put forward several general conjectures concerning the algebraicity or transcendence of continued fractions and Stieltjes continued fractions defined by the Thue-Morse and period-doubling sequences in characteristic $2$. We present our Guess'n'Prove method, in which we exploit the structure of automata, for proving some of our conjectures in special cases.
Expansion complexity and maximum order complexity are both finer measures of pseudorandomness than the linear complexity which is the most prominent quality measure for cryptographic sequences. The expected value of the $N$th maximum order complexity is of order of magnitude $\log N$ whereas it is easy to find families of sequences with $N$th expansion complexity exponential in $\log N$. This might lead to the conjecture that the maximum order complexity is a finer measure than the expansion complexity. However, in this paper we provide two examples, the Thue-Morse sequence and the Rudin-Shapi…
We discuss the base 3/2 representation of the natural numbers. We prove that the sum of digits function of the representation is a fixed point of a 2-block substitution on an infinite alphabet, and that this implies that sum of digits function modulo 2 of the representation is a fixed point $x_{3/2}$ of a 2-block substitution on $\{0,1\}$. We prove that $x_{3/2}$ is mirror invariant, and present a list of conjectured properties of $x_{3/2}$, which we think will be hard to prove. Finally, we make a comparison with a variant of the base 3/2 representation, and give a general result on $p$-$q$-bl…
In this article we introduce a new approach to compute infinite products defined by automatic sequences involving the Thue-Morse sequence. As examples, for any positive integers $q$ and $r$ such that $0 \leq r \leq q-1$, we find infinitely many couples of rational functions $R(x)$ and $S(n)$ such that $$\prod_{n=0}^{\infty}R(n)^{\frac{1+a_n}{2}}S(n)^{\frac{1-a_n}{2}}=2cos(\frac{2r+1}{2q}π),$$ where $(a_n)_{n \in \mathbf{N}}$ is the Thue-Morse sequence beginning with $a_0=1,a_1= -1$.
We estimate Gowers uniformity norms for some classical automatic sequences, such as the Thue-Morse and Rudin-Shapiro sequences. The methods can also be extended to other automatic sequences. As an application, we asymptotically count arithmetic progressions in the set of integers $\leq N$ where the Thue-Morse (resp. Rudin-Shapiro) sequence takes the value $+1$.
Recently Dekking conjectured the form of the subword complexity function for the Fibonacci-Thue-Morse sequence. In this note we prove his conjecture by purely computational means, using the free software Walnut.
For certain generalized Thue-Morse words t, we compute the "critical exponent", i.e., the supremum of the set of rational numbers that are exponents of powers in t, and determine exactly the occurrences of powers realizing it.
We prove various results about the largest exponent of a repetition in a factor of the Thue-Morse word, when that factor is considered as a circular word. Our results confirm and generalize previous results of Fitzpatrick and Aberkane & Currie.
We say that a word $w$ of length $kn$ is a $k$-\textit{antipower} if it can be written in the form $w_1 \cdots w_k$, where each $w_i$ is a distinct word of length $n$. We analyze prefixes of the Thue-Morse word $\textbf{t}$ and lengths of antipowers occurring in them. Define $Γ(k)$ to be the largest odd $n$ such that the prefix of $\textbf{t}$ of length $kn$ is not a $k$-antipower, and $γ(k)$ to be the smallest odd $n$ such that the corresponding prefix is a $k$-antipower. We provide strong bounds on the asymptotic values of $γ(k)$ and $Γ(k)-γ(k)$. Our bounds on $γ(k)$ affirmatively answer one…
In 1998, Allouche, Peyrière, Wen and Wen established that the Hankel determinants associated with the Thue--Morse sequence on $\{-1, 1\}$ are always nonzero. Their proof depends on a set of sixteen recurrence relations. We present an alternative, purely combinatorial proof of the same result. We also re-prove a recent result of Coons on the non-vanishing of the Hankel determinants associated to two other classical integer sequences.
Let $q$ be a positive integer. Consider an infinite word $ω=w_0w_1w_2\cdots$ over an alphabet of cardinality $q$. A finite word $u$ is called an arithmetic factor of $ω$ if $u=w_cw_{c+d}w_{c+2d}\cdots w_{c+(|u|-1)d}$ for some choice of positive integers $c$ and $d$. We call $c$ the initial number and $d$ the difference of $u$. For each such $u$ we define its arithmetic index by $\lceil\log_q d\rceil$ where $d$ is the least positive integer such that $u$ occurs in $ω$ as an arithmetic factor with difference $d$. In this paper we study the rate of growth of the arithmetic index of arithmetic fac…
We consider the positions of occurrences of a factor $x$ and its binary complement $\overline{x}$ in the Thue-Morse word ${\bf t} = {\tt 01101001} \cdots$, and show that these occurrences are "intertwined" in essentially two different ways. Our proof method consists of stating the needed properties as a first-order logic formula $φ$, and then using a theorem-prover to prove $φ$.
Recently, Fici, Restivo, Silva, and Zamboni defined a $k$-anti-power to be a word of the form $w_1w_2\cdots w_k$, where $w_1,w_2,\ldots,w_k$ are distinct words of the same length. They defined $AP(x,k)$ to be the set of all positive integers $m$ such that the prefix of length $km$ of the word $x$ is a $k$-anti-power. Let ${\bf t}$ denote the Thue-Morse word, and let $\mathcal F(k)=AP({\bf t},k)\cap(2\mathbb Z^+-1)$. For $k\geq 3$, $γ(k)=\min(\mathcal F(k))$ and $Γ(k)=\max((2\mathbb Z^+-1)\setminus\mathcal F(k))$ are well-defined odd positive integers. Fici et al. speculated that $γ(k)$ grows l…
The Thue--Morse sequence is a prototypical automatic sequence found in diverse areas of mathematics, and in computer science. We study occurrences of factors $w$ within this sequence, more precisely, the sequence of gaps between consecutive occurrences. This gap sequence is morphic; we prove that it is not automatic as soon as the length of $w$ is at least two, thereby answering a question by J.~Shallit in the affirmative. We give an explicit method to compute the \emph{discrepancy} of the number of occurrences of the block $\mathtt{01}$ in the Thue--Morse sequence. We prove that the sequence …
Two words are $k$-binomially equivalent whenever they share the same subwords, i.e., subsequences, of length at most $k$ with the same multiplicities. This is a refinement of both abelian equivalence and the Simon congruence. The $k$-binomial complexity of an infinite word $\mathbf{x}$ maps the integer $n$ to the number of classes in the quotient, by this $k$-binomial equivalence relation, of the set of factors of length $n$ occurring in $\mathbf{x}$. This complexity measure has not been investigated very much. In this paper, we characterize the $k$-binomial complexity of the Thue--Morse word.…
We prove that for $n\geq 2$, the size $b(t_n)$ of the smallest bidirectional scheme for the $n$th Thue--Morse word $t_n$ is $n+2$. Since Kutsukake et al. [SPIRE 2020] show that the size $γ(t_n)$ of the smallest string attractor for $t_n$ is $4$ for $n \geq 4$, this shows for the first time that there is a separation between the size of the smallest string attractor $γ$ and the size of the smallest bidirectional scheme $b$, i.e., there exist string families such that $γ= o(b)$.
Both the Thue-Morse and Rudin-Shapiro sequences are not suitable sequences for cryptography since their expansion complexity is small and their correlation measure of order 2 is large. These facts imply that these sequences are highly predictable despite the fact that they have a large maximum order complexity. Sun and Winterhof (2019) showed that the Thue-Morse sequence along squares keeps a large maximum order complexity. Since, by Christol's theorem, the expansion complexity of this rarefied sequence is no longer bounded, this provides a potentially better candidate for cryptographic applic…
The Stern polynomials defined by $s(0;x)=0$, $s(1;x)=1$, and for $n\geq 1$ by $s(2n;x)=s(n;x^2)$ and $s(2n+1;x)=x\,s(n;x^2)+s(n+1;x^2)$ have only 0 and 1 as coefficients. We construct an infinite lower-triangular matrix related to the coefficients of the $s(n;x)$ and show that its inverse has only 0, 1, and $-1$ as entries, which we find explicitly. In particular, the sign distribution of the entries is determined by the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence. We also obtain other properties of this matrix and a related Pascal-type matrix that involve the Catalan, Stirling, Fibonacci, Fine, and Padovan n…
We revisit the periodic complexity function $h_{\bf w}(n)$ introduced by Mignosi and Restivo. This function gives the average of the first $n$ local periods of a recurrent infinite word ${\bf w}$. We give a different method than that of Mignosi and Restivo for computing the asymptotics of the periodic complexity function of the Thue-Morse word and show how to apply the method to other automatic sequences, like the Rudin-Shapiro word and the period-doubling word.
The Hankel determinants of certain automatic sequences $f$ are evaluated, based on a calculation modulo a prime number. In most cases, the Hankel determinants of automatic sequences do not have any closed-form expressions; the traditional methods, such as $LU$-decompo\-si\-tion and Jacobi continued fraction, cannot be applied directly. Our method is based on a simple idea: the Hankel determinants of each sequence $g$ equal to $f$ modulo $p$ are equal to the Hankel determinants of $f$ modulo $p$. The clue then consists of finding a nice sequence $g$, whose Hankel determinants have closed-form e…
Let $s_{k}(n)$ denote the sum of digits of an integer $n$ in base $k$. Motivated by certain identities of Nieto, and Bateman and Bradley involving sums of the form $\sum_{i=0}^{2^{n}-1}(-1)^{s_{2}(i)}(x+i)^{m}$ for $m=n$ and $m=n+1$, we consider the sequence of polynomials \begin{equation*} f_{m,n}^{\mathbf u}(x)=\sum_{i=0}^{k^{n}-1}ζ_{k}^{s_{k}(i)}(x+{\mathbf u}(i))^{m}. \end{equation*} defined for sequences ${\bf u}(i)$ satisfying a certain recurrence relation. We prove that computing these polynomials is essentially equivalent with computing their constant term and we find an explicit formu…
In this work we consider morphisms that preserve well-known non-repeating properties: squarefreeness, cubefreeness, overlap-freeness and weak squarefreeness. Up to the present moment only the morphisms preserving three out of four non-repeating properties have been known. The problem of the existence of weakly squarefree morphisms was open. The essential result of this work is the positive solution to this problem. An example of the morphism preserving all four properties is provided. Also, it is proved that there are no morphisms with the same properties and a lower rank.
Let (t_n) be the classical Thue-Morse sequence defined by t_n = s_2(n) (mod 2), where s_2 is the sum of the bits in the binary representation of n. It is well known that for any integer k>=1 the frequency of the letter "1" in the subsequence t_0, t_k, t_{2k}, ... is asymptotically 1/2. Here we prove that for any k there is a n<=k+4 such that t_{kn}=1. Moreover, we show that n can be chosen to have Hamming weight <=3. This is best in a twofold sense. First, there are infinitely many k such that t_{kn}=1 implies that n has Hamming weight >=3. Second, we characterize all k where the minimal n equ…
Univoque numbers are real numbers $λ> 1$ such that the number 1 admits a unique expansion in base $λ$, i.e., a unique expansion $1 = \sum_{j \geq 0} a_j λ^{-(j+1)}$, with $a_j \in \{0, 1, ..., \lceil λ\rceil -1\}$ for every $j \geq 0$. A variation of this definition was studied in 2002 by Komornik and Loreti, together with sequences called {\em admissible sequences}. We show how a 1983 study of the first author gives both a result of Komornik and Loreti on the smallest admissible sequence on the set $\{0, 1, >..., b\}$, and a result of de Vries and Komornik (2007) on the smallest univoque numb…
The prefix palindromic length $PPL_u(n)$ of an infinite word $u$ is the minimal number of concatenated palindromes needed to express the prefix of length $n$ of $u$. In a 2013 paper with Puzynina and Zamboni we stated the conjecture that $PPL_u(n)$ is unbounded for every infinite word $u$ which is not ultimately periodic. Up to now, the conjecture has been proven for almost all words, including all words avoiding some power $p$. However, even in that simple case the existing upper bound for the minimal number $n$ such that $PPL_u(n)>K$ is greater than any constant to the power $K$. Precise val…
The Smallest String Attractors of Fibonacci, Period-Doubling, and Thue--Morse Words
Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University(名古屋大学情报大学院);M&D Data Science Center, Institute of Science Tokyo(东京科学大学M&D数据科学中心);Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Yamanashi(山梨大学计算机科学与工程系);Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, University of Electro-Communications(电波大学信息与工程学研究生院)
In this paper we study some additive properties of subsets of the set $\nats$ of positive integers: A subset $A$ of $\nats$ is called {\it $k$-summable} (where $k\in\ben$) if $A$ contains $\textstyle \big{\sum_{n\in F}x_n | \emp\neq F\subseteq {1,2,...,k\} \big}$ for some $k$-term sequence of natural numbers $x_1<x_2 < ... < x_k$. We say $A \subseteq \nats$ is finite FS-big if $A$ is $k$-summable for each positive integer $k$. We say is $A \subseteq \nats$ is infinite FS-big if for each positive integer $k,$ $A$ contains ${\sum_{n\in F}x_n | \emp\neq F\subseteq \nats and #F\leq k}$ for some in…
We show that two duelers with similar, lousy shooting skills (a.k.a. Galois duelers) will choose to take turns firing in accordance with the famous Thue-Morse sequence if they greedily demand their chances to fire as soon as the other's a priori probability of winning exceeds their own. This contrasts with a result from the approximation theory of complex functions that says what more patient duelers would do, if they really cared about being as fair as possible. We note a consequent interpretation of the Thue-Morse sequence in terms of certain expansions in fractional bases close to, but grea…
Let $p$ be a prime number and consider a $p$-automatic sequence ${\bf u}=(u_{n})_{n\in\N}$ and its generating function $U(X)=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}u_{n}X^{n}\in\mathbb{F}_{p}[[X]]$. Moreover, let us suppose that $u_{0}=0$ and $u_{1}\neq 0$ and consider the formal power series $V\in\mathbb{F}_{p}[[X]]$ which is a compositional inverse of $U(X)$, i.e., $U(V(X))=V(U(X))=X$. In this note we initiate the study of arithmetic properties of the sequence of coefficients of the power series $V(X)$. We are mainly interested in the case when $u_{n}=t_{n}$, where $t_{n}=s_{2}(n)\pmod{2}$ and ${\bf t}=(t_{n})_…
Generalized pseudostandard word $\bf u$, as introduced in 2006 by de Luca and De Luca, is given by a directive sequence of letters from an alphabet ${\cal A}$ and by a directive sequence of involutory antimorphisms acting on ${\cal A}^*$. Prefixes of $\bf u$ with increasing length are constructed using pseudopalindromic closure operator. We show that generalized Thue--Morse words ${\bf t}_{b,m}$, with $b, m \in \N$ and $b, m \geq 2$, are generalized pseudostandard words if and only if ${\bf t}_{b,m}$ is a periodic word or $b \leq m$. This extends the result of de Luca and De Luca obtained for …
We study the palindromic length of factors of infinite words fixed by morphisms of the so-called class $\mathcal{P}$ introduced by Hof, Knill and Simon. We show that it grows at most logarithmically with the length of the factor. For the Fibonacci word and the Thue-Morse word we provide estimates on the constants of the growth. We also construct an infinite word rich in palindromes for which the palindromic length grows as $\sqrt{n}$.
Let ${\mathbb F}_q$ be the finite field of $q$ elements, where $q=p^r$ is a power of the prime $p$, and $\left(β_1, β_2, \dots, β_r \right)$ be an ordered basis of ${\mathbb F}_q$ over ${\mathbb F}_p$. For $$ξ=\sum_{i=1}^rx_iβ_i, \quad \quad x_i\in{\mathbb F}_p,$$ we define the Thue-Morse or sum-of-digits function $T(ξ)$ on ${\mathbb F}_q$ by \[ T(ξ)=\sum_{i=1}^{r}x_i.%,\quad ξ=x_1β_1+\cdots +x_rβ_r\in {\mathbb F}_q. \] For a given pattern length $s$ with $1\le s\le q$, a subset ${\cal A}=\{α_1,\ldots,α_s\}\subset {\mathbb F}_q$, a polynomial $f(X)\in{\mathbb F}_q[X]$ of degree $d$ and a vecto…
We consider in general two-block substitutions and their fixed points. We prove that some of them have a simple structure: their fixed points are morphic sequences. Others are intrinsically more complex, such as the Kolakoski sequence. We prove this for the Thue-Morse sequence in base 3/2.