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 exponent. From these results, we derive that at every position of an aperiodic uniformly recurrent word start anti-powers of any order. We further show that any infinite word avoiding anti-powers of order 3 is ultimately periodic, and that there exist aperiodic words avoiding anti-powers of order 4. We also show that there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order 6, and leave open the question whether there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order k for k = 4, 5.

Fici, G., Restivo, A., Silva, M., Zamboni, L. (2016). Anti-powers in infinite words. In Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs. Schloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing [10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2016.124].

Anti-powers in infinite words

Fici, Gabriele
;
Restivo, Antonio;
2016-01-01

Abstract

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 exponent. From these results, we derive that at every position of an aperiodic uniformly recurrent word start anti-powers of any order. We further show that any infinite word avoiding anti-powers of order 3 is ultimately periodic, and that there exist aperiodic words avoiding anti-powers of order 4. We also show that there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order 6, and leave open the question whether there exist aperiodic recurrent words avoiding anti-powers of order k for k = 4, 5.
2016
Fici, G., Restivo, A., Silva, M., Zamboni, L. (2016). Anti-powers in infinite words. In Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs. Schloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing [10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2016.124].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10447/250822
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