We introduce the notion of unavoidable (complete) sets of word patterns, which is a refinement for that of words, and study certain numerical characteristics for unavoidable sets of patterns. In some cases we employ the graph of pattern overlaps introduced in this paper, which is a subgraph of the de Bruijn graph and which we prove to be Hamiltonian. In other cases we reduce a problem under consideration to known facts on unavoidable sets of words. We also give a relation between our problem and intensively studied universal cycles, and prove there exists a universal cycle for word patterns of any length over any alphabet.
Keywords: pattern, word, (un)avoidability, de Bruijn graph, universal cycles
A word $w$ is said to contain the pattern $P$ if there is a way to substitute a nonempty word for each letter in $P$ so that the resulting word is a subword of $w$. Bean, Ehrenfeucht and McNulty and, independently, Zimin characterised the patterns $P$ which are unavoidable, in the sense that any sufficiently long word over a fixed alphabet contains $P$. Zimin's characterisation says that a pattern is unavoidable if and only if it is contained in a Zimin word, where the Zimin words are defined by $Z_1 = x_1$ and $Z_n=Z_{n-1} x_n Z_{n-1}$. We study the quantitative aspects of this theorem, obtai…
How long can a word be that avoids the unavoidable? Word $W$ encounters word $V$ provided there is a homomorphism $ϕ$ defined by mapping letters to nonempty words such that $ϕ(V)$ is a subword of $W$. Otherwise, $W$ is said to avoid $V$. If, on any arbitrary finite alphabet, there are finitely many words that avoid $V$, then we say $V$ is unavoidable. Zimin (1982) proved that every unavoidable word is encountered by some word $Z_n$, defined by: $Z_1 = x_1$ and $Z_{n+1} = Z_n x_{n+1} Z_n$. Here we explore bounds on how long words can be and still avoid the unavoidable Zimin words.
As suggested by Currie, we apply the probabilistic method to problems regarding pattern avoidance. Using techniques from analytic combinatorics, we calculate asymptotic pattern occurrence statistics and use them in conjunction with the probabilistic method to establish new results about the Ramsey theory of unavoidable patterns in the full word case (both nonabelian sense and abelian sense) and in the partial word case. Keywords: Combinatorics on words; Partial words; Unavoidable patterns; Abelian patterns; Probabilistic method; Analytic combinatorics; Ramsey theory.
Free words are elements of a free monoid, generated over an alphabet via the binary operation of concatenation. Casually speaking, a free word is a finite string of letters. Henceforth, we simply refer to them as words. Motivated by recent advances in the combinatorial limit theory of graphs-notably those involving flag algebras, graph homomorphisms, and graphons-we investigate the extremal and asymptotic theory of pattern containment and avoidance in words. Word V is a factor of word W provided V occurs as consecutive letters within W. W is an instance of V provided there exists a nonerasing …
For a set H of tournaments, we say H is heroic if every tournament, not containing any member of H as a subtournament, has bounded chromatic number. Berger et al. explicitly characterized all heroic sets containing one tournament. Motivated by this result, we study heroic sets containing two tournaments. We give a necessary condition for a set containing two tournaments to be heroic. We also construct infinitely many minimal heroic sets of size two.
We present an interactive framework that, given a membership test for a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ and a number $k$, finds and tests unavoidable sets for the class of graphs in $\mathcal{G}$ of path-width at most $k$. We put special emphasis on the case that $\mathcal{G}$ is the class of cubic graphs and tailor the algorithm to this case. In particular, we introduce the new concept of high-degree-first path-decompositions, which yields highly efficient pruning techniques. Using this framework we determine all extremal girth values of cubic graphs of path-width $k$ for all $k \in \{3,\dots, 10\}…
A homogeneous set of an $n$-vertex graph is a set $X$ of vertices ($2\le |X|\le n-1$) such that every vertex not in $X$ is either complete or anticomplete to $X$. A graph is called prime if it has no homogeneous set. A chain of length $t$ is a sequence of $t+1$ vertices such that for every vertex in the sequence except the first one, its immediate predecessor is its unique neighbor or its unique non-neighbor among all of its predecessors. We prove that for all $n$, there exists $N$ such that every prime graph with at least $N$ vertices contains one of the following graphs or their complements …
We introduced the notation of a set of prohibitions and give definitions of a complete set and a crucial word with respect to a given set of prohibitions. We consider 3 particular sets which appear in different areas of mathematics and for each of them examine the length of a crucial word. One of these sets is proved to be incomplete. The problem of determining lengths of words that are free from a set of prohibitions is shown to be NP-complete, although the related problem of whether or not a given set of prohibitions is complete is known to be effectively solvable.
Grinberg defined Nyldon words as those words which cannot be factorized into a sequence of lexicographically nondecreasing smaller Nyldon words. He was inspired by Lyndon words, defined the same way except with "nondecreasing" replaced by "nonincreasing." Charlier, Philibert, and Stipulanti proved that, like Lyndon words, any word has a unique nondecreasing factorization into Nyldon words. They also show that the Nyldon words form a right Lazard set, and equivalently, a right Hall set. In this paper, we provide a new proof of unique factorization into Nyldon words related to Hall set theory an…
Cross-bifix-free sets are sets of words such that no prefix of any word is a sufix of any other word. In this paper, we introduce a general constructive method for the sets of cross-bifix-free q-ary words of fixed length. It enables us to determine a cross-bifix-free words subset which has the property to be non-expandable.
Given a set of $t$ words of length $n$ over a $k$-letter alphabet, it is proved that there exists a common subsequence among two of them of length at least $\frac{n}{k}+cn^{1-1/(t-k-2)}$, for some $c>0$ depending on $k$ and $t$. This is sharp up to the value of $c$.
In a recent paper by Kitaev and Remmel, several formulas for the number of words of length n avoiding some generalized patterns were established. Each time the obtained function of n had been found in Sloane's Encyclopedia as the number of some other objects, but the bijections between the two sets did not follow from the proof. Kitaev and Remmel stated four open problems on finding respective bijections. Here we solve two of them, concerning sequences A007070 and A048739.
We show that Ramsey theory, a domain presently conceived to guarantee the existence of large homogeneous sets for partitions on k-tuples of words (for every natural number k) over a finite alphabet, can be extended to one for partitions on Schreier-type sets of words (of every countable ordinal). Indeed, we establish an extension of the partition theorem of Carlson about words and of the (more general) partition theorem of Furstenberg-Katznelson about combinatorial subspaces of the set of words (generating from k-tuples of words for any fixed natural number k) into a partition theorem about co…
We solve two long-standing open problems on word equations. Firstly, we prove that a one-variable word equation with constants has either at most three or an infinite number of solutions. The existence of such a bound had been conjectured, and the bound three is optimal. Secondly, we consider independent systems of three-variable word equations without constants. If such a system has a nonperiodic solution, then this system of equations is at most of size 17. Although probably not optimal, this is the first finite bound found. However, the conjecture of that bound being actually two still rema…
The avoidability of binary patterns by binary cube-free words is investigated and the exact bound between unavoidable and avoidable patterns is found. All avoidable patterns are shown to be D0L-avoidable. For avoidable patterns, the growth rates of the avoiding languages are studied. All such languages, except for the overlap-free language, are proved to have exponential growth. The exact growth rates of languages avoiding minimal avoidable patterns are approximated through computer-assisted upper bounds. Finally, a new example of a pattern-avoiding language of polynomial growth is given.
We consider systems of word equations and their solution sets. We discuss some fascinating properties of those, namely the size of a maximal independent set of word equations, and proper chains of solution sets of those. We recall the basic results, extend some known results and formulate several fundamental problems of the topic.
Let $Λ^{\ast}$ be the free monoid of (finite) words over a not necessarily finite alphabet $Λ$, which is equipped with some (partial) order. This ordering lifts to $Λ^{\ast}$, where it extends the divisibility ordering of words. The MacNeille completion of $Λ^{\ast}$ constitutes a complete lattice ordered monoid and is realized by the system of "closed" lower sets in $Λ^*$ (ordered by inclusion) or its isomorphic copy formed of the "closed" upper sets (ordered by reverse inclusion). Under some additional hypothesis on $Λ$, one can easily identify the closed lower sets as the finitely generated…
We introduce a class of sets of words which is a natural common generalization of Sturmian sets and of interval exchange sets. This class of sets consists of the uniformly recurrent tree sets, where the tree sets are defined by a condition on the possible extensions of bispecial factors. We prove that this class is closed under maximal bifix decoding. The proof uses the fact that the class is also closed under decoding with respect to return words.
We show that the equality language of two non-periodic binary morphisms is generated by at most two words. If its rank is two, then the generators start (and end) with different letters. This in particular implies that any binary language has a test set of cardinality at most two.
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 investigate the number of sets of words that can be formed from a finite alphabet, counted by the total length of the words in the set. An explicit expression for the counting sequence is derived from the generating function, and asymptotics for large alphabet respectively large total word length are discussed. Moreover, we derive a Gaussian limit law for the number of words in a random finite language.
We present several enumeration results holding in sets of words called neutral and which satisfy restrictive conditions on the set of possible extensions of nonempty words. These formulae concern return words and bifix codes. They generalize formulae previously known for Sturmian sets or more generally for tree sets. We also give a geometric example of this class of sets, namely the natural coding of some interval exchange transformations.
Pattern avoidance for permutations has been extensively studied, and has been generalized to vincular patterns, where certain elements can be required to be adjacent. In addition, cyclic permutations, i.e., permutations written in a circle rather than a line, have been frequently studied, including in the context of pattern avoidance. We investigate vincular pattern avoidance on cyclic permutations. In particular, we enumerate many avoidance classes of sets of vincular patterns of length 3, including a complete enumeration for all single patterns of length 3. Further, several of the avoidance …
A subset $A$ of $\nats$ is called an IP-set if $A$ contains all finite sums of distinct terms of some infinite sequence $(x_n)_{n\in \nats} $ of natural numbers. Central sets, first introduced by Furstenberg using notions from topological dynamics, constitute a special class of IP-sets possessing rich combinatorial properties: Each central set contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions, and solutions to all partition regular systems of homogeneous linear equations. In this paper we investigate central sets in the framework of combinatorics on words. Using various families of uniformly r…
Given a set $F$ of words, one associates to each word $w$ in $F$ an undirected graph, called its extension graph, and which describes the possible extensions of $w$ on the left and on the right. We investigate the family of sets of words defined by the property of the extension graph of each word in the set to be acyclic or connected or a tree. We prove that in a uniformly recurrent tree set, the sets of first return words are bases of the free group on the alphabet. Concerning acyclic sets, we prove as a main result that a set $F$ is acyclic if and only if any bifix code included in $F$ is a …
We prove two extensions of Hansson and Hultman's word property for certain analogues of reduced words associated to twisted involutions in Coxeter groups. Our first extension concerns the superset of such words in which terms with a natural commutativity property may be optionally primed. Our other extension involves variants of these words in which a defining minimal length condition is relaxed. In type A the sets considered are closely related to generating functions for Schur Q-functions and K-theoretic Schur P-functions.
We define the excedence set and the excedance word on $G_{r,n}$, generalizing a work of Ehrenborg and Steingrimsson and use the inclusion-exclusion principle to calculate the number of colored permutations having a prescribed excedance word. We show some symmetric properties as Log concavity and unimodality of a specific sequence of excedance words.
A subset $A$ of $\mathbb{N}$ is called an IP-set if $A$ contains all finite sums of distinct terms of some infinite sequence $(x_n)_{n\in \mathbb{N}} $ of natural numbers. Central sets, first introduced by Furstenberg using notions from topological dynamics, constitute a special class of IP-sets possessing additional nice combinatorial properties: Each central set contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions, and solutions to all partition regular systems of homogeneous linear equations. In this paper we show how certain families of aperiodic words of low factor complexity may be used to …
We continue to consider the ordered lexicographic sequence, which is constructed according to the formal characteristics of a series of natural numbers. For analysis, we selected balanced parentheses with zeros, Motzkin words. As you know, generating functions allow you to work with combinatorial objects by analytical methods. Motzkin words are enumerated by Motzkin numbers, for the generation of which there is a corresponding generating function. In our case, restrictions are imposed on Motzkin words, for example, there are no leading zeros in bracket sets. The purpose of this article is to o…
This paper considers a problem that relates to the theories of covering arrays, permutation patterns, Vapnik-Chervonenkis (VC) classes, and probability thresholds. Specifically, we want to find the number of subsets of [n]:={1,2,....,n} we need to randomly select, in a certain probability space, so as to respectively "shatter" all t-subsets of [n]. Moving from subsets to words, we ask for the number of n-letter words on a q-letter alphabet that are needed to shatter all t-subwords of the q^n words of length n. Finally, we explore the number of random permutations of [n] needed to shatter (spec…
Let $s(n)$ be the side length of the smallest square into which $n$ non-overlapping unit squares can be packed. In 2010, the author showed that $s(13)=4$ and $s(46)=7$. Together with the result $s(6)=3$ by Keaney and Shiu, these results strongly suggest that $s(m^2-3)=m$ for $m\ge 3$, in particular for the values $m=5,6$, which correspond to cases that lie in between the previous results. In this article we show that indeed $s(m^2-3)=m$ for $m=5,6$, implying that the most efficient packings of 22 and 33 squares are the trivial ones. To achieve our results, we modify the well-known method of se…
The nodes of the de Bruijn graph B(d,3) consist of all strings of length 3, taken from an alphabet of size d, with edges between words which are distinct substrings of a word of length 4. We give an inductive characterization of the maximum independent sets of the de Bruijn graphs B(d,3) and for the de Bruijn graph of diameter three with loops removed, for arbitrary alphabet size. We derive a recurrence relation and an exponential generating function for their number. This recurrence allows us to construct exponentially many comma-free codes of length 3 with maximal cardinality.
In this paper we consider the following problems: how many different subsets of Sigma^n can occur as set of all length-n factors of a finite word? If a subset is representable, how long a word do we need to represent it? How many such subsets are represented by words of length t? For the first problem, we give upper and lower bounds of the form alpha^(2^n) in the binary case. For the second problem, we give a weak upper bound and some experimental data. For the third problem, we give a closed-form formula in the case where n <= t < 2n. Algorithmic variants of these problems have previously bee…
An automaton is synchronizing if there is a word that maps all states onto the same state. Černý's conjecture on the length of the shortest such word is probably the most famous open problem in automata theory. We consider the closely related question of determining the minimum length of a word that maps $k$ states onto a single state. For synchronizing automata, we improve the upper bound on the minimum length of a word that sends some triple to a a single state from $0.5n^2$ to $\approx 0.19n^2$. We further extend this to an improved bound on the length of such a word for 4 states and 5 stat…
Two words have a reverse if they have the same pair of distinct letters on the same pair of positions, but in reversed order. A set of words no two of which have a reverse is said to be reverse-free. Let F(n,k) be the maximum size of a reverse-free set of words from [n]^k where no letter repeats within a word. We show the following lower and upper bounds in the case n >= k: F(n,k) \in n^k k^{-k/2 + O(k/log k)}. As a consequence of the lower bound, a set of n-permutations each two having a reverse has size at most n^{n/2 + O(n/log n)}.
A cross-bifix-free set of words is a set in which no prefix of any length of any word is the suffix of any other word in the set. A construction of cross-bifix-free sets has recently been proposed by Chee {\it et al.} in 2013 within a constant factor of optimality. We propose a \emph{trace partitioned} Gray code for these cross-bifix-free sets and a CAT algorithm generating it.
In this paper, we establish a bijection between the infinite reduced words of an affine Weyl group and certain biclosed sets of its positive system and determine all finitely generated biclosed sets in the positive system of an affine Weyl group. Using these results, we show first that the biclosed sets in the standard positive system of rank 3 affine Weyl groups when ordered by inclusion form a complete algebraic ortholattice and secondly that the (generalized) braid graphs of those Coxeter groups are connected, which can be thought of as an infinite version of Tit's solution to the word prob…
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…
In this paper, we prove results on enumerations of sets of Rota-Baxter words in a finite number of generators and a finite number of unary operators. Rota-Baxter words are words formed by concatenating generators and images of words under Rota-Baxter operators. Under suitable conditions, they form canonical bases of free Rota-Baxter algebras and are studied recently in relation to combinatorics, number theory, renormalization in quantum field theory, and operads. Enumeration of a basis is often a first step to choosing a data representation in implementation. Our method applies some simple ide…
Given a (finite or infinite) subset $X$ of the free monoid $A^*$ over a finite alphabet $A$, the rank of $X$ is the minimal cardinality of a set $F$ such that $X \subseteq F^*$. A submonoid $M$ generated by $k$ elements of $A^*$ is $k$-maximal if there does not exist another submonoid generated by at most $k$ words containing $M$. We call a set $X \subseteq A^*$ primitive if it is the basis of a $|X|$-maximal submonoid. This extends the notion of primitive word: indeed, $\{w\}$ is a primitive set if and only if $w$ is a primitive word. By definition, for any set $X$, there exists a primitive s…
A bidimensional bifix (in short bibifix) of a square matrix T is a square submatrix of T which occurs in the top-left and bottom-right corners of T. This allows us to extend the definition of bifix-free words and cross-bifix-free set of words to bidimensional structures. In this paper we exhaustively generate all the bibifix-free square matrices and we construct a particular non-expandable cross-bibifix-free set of square matrices. Moreover, we provide a Gray code for listing this set.
Let $A$ be a finite or countable alphabet and let $θ$ be literal (anti)morphism onto $A^*$ (by definition, such a correspondence is determinated by a permutation of the alphabet). This paper deals with sets which are invariant under $θ$ ($θ$-invariant for short).We establish an extension of the famous defect theorem. Moreover, we prove that for the so-called thin $θ$-invariant codes, maximality and completeness are two equivalent notions. We prove that a similar property holds in the framework of some special families of $θ$-invariant codes such as prefix (bifix) codes, codes with a finite dec…
A necessary and sufficient condition for an element of an algebra (in the sense of Universal Algebra) to be in the dominion of a subalgebra is given, in terms of transferable sets. This criterion is then used to formulate a more wieldy sufficient condition. Finally, some connections to a purely combinatorial setting are outlined.
Given a (finite or infinite) subset $X$ of the free monoid $A^*$ over a finite alphabet $A$, the rank of $X$ is the minimal cardinality of a set $F$ such that $X \subseteq F^*$. We say that a submonoid $M$ generated by $k$ elements of $A^*$ is {\em $k$-maximal} if there does not exist another submonoid generated by at most $k$ words containing $M$. We call a set $X \subseteq A^*$ {\em primitive} if it is the basis of a $|X|$-maximal submonoid. This definition encompasses the notion of primitive word -- in fact, $\{w\}$ is a primitive set if and only if $w$ is a primitive word. By definition, f…
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…
A foundational result in the theory of Lyndon words (words that are strictly earlier in lexicographic order than their cyclic permutations) is the Chen-Fox-Lyndon theorem which states that every word has a unique non-increasing decomposition into Lyndon words. This article extends this factorization theorem, obtaining the proportion of these decompositions that are strictly decreasing. This result is then used to count primitive pseudo orbits (sets of primitive periodic orbits) on q-nary graphs. As an application we obtain a diagonal approximation to the variance of the characteristic polynomi…
We study the girth of Cayley graphs of finite classical groups G on random sets of generators. Our main tool is an essentially best possible bound we obtain on the probability that a given word w takes the value 1 when evaluated in G in terms of the length of w, which has additional applications. We also study the girth of random directed Cayley graphs of symmetric groups, and the relation between the girth and the diameter of random Cayley graphs of finite simple groups.
