Search results for "Special factor"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
A Characterization of Bispecial Sturmian Words
2012
A finite Sturmian word w over the alphabet {a,b} is left special (resp. right special) if aw and bw (resp. wa and wb) are both Sturmian words. A bispecial Sturmian word is a Sturmian word that is both left and right special. We show as a main result that bispecial Sturmian words are exactly the maximal internal factors of Christoffel words, that are words coding the digital approximations of segments in the Euclidean plane. This result is an extension of the known relation between central words and primitive Christoffel words. Our characterization allows us to give an enumerative formula for bispecial Sturmian words. We also investigate the minimal forbidden words for the set of Sturmian wo…
Combinatorics of Finite Words and Suffix Automata
2009
The suffix automaton of a finite word is the minimal deterministic automaton accepting the language of its suffixes. The states of the suffix automaton are the classes of an equivalence relation defined on the set of factors. We explore the relationship between the combinatorial properties of a finite word and the structural properties of its suffix automaton. We give formulas for expressing the total number of states and the total number of edges of the suffix automaton in terms of special factors of the word.
Enumeration and Structure of Trapezoidal Words
2013
Trapezoidal words are words having at most $n+1$ distinct factors of length $n$ for every $n\ge 0$. They therefore encompass finite Sturmian words. We give combinatorial characterizations of trapezoidal words and exhibit a formula for their enumeration. We then separate trapezoidal words into two disjoint classes: open and closed. A trapezoidal word is closed if it has a factor that occurs only as a prefix and as a suffix; otherwise it is open. We investigate open and closed trapezoidal words, in relation with their special factors. We prove that Sturmian palindromes are closed trapezoidal words and that a closed trapezoidal word is a Sturmian palindrome if and only if its longest repeated …
A Classification of Trapezoidal Words
2011
Trapezoidal words are finite words having at most n+1 distinct factors of length n, for every n>=0. They encompass finite Sturmian words. We distinguish trapezoidal words into two disjoint subsets: open and closed trapezoidal words. A trapezoidal word is closed if its longest repeated prefix has exactly two occurrences in the word, the second one being a suffix of the word. Otherwise it is open. We show that open trapezoidal words are all primitive and that closed trapezoidal words are all Sturmian. We then show that trapezoidal palindromes are closed (and therefore Sturmian). This allows us to characterize the special factors of Sturmian palindromes. We end with several open problems.
On the Structure of Bispecial Sturmian Words
2013
A balanced word is one in which any two factors of the same length contain the same number of each letter of the alphabet up to one. Finite binary balanced words are called Sturmian words. A Sturmian word is bispecial if it can be extended to the left and to the right with both letters remaining a Sturmian word. There is a deep relation between bispecial Sturmian words and Christoffel words, that are the digital approximations of Euclidean segments in the plane. In 1997, J. Berstel and A. de Luca proved that \emph{palindromic} bispecial Sturmian words are precisely the maximal internal factors of \emph{primitive} Christoffel words. We extend this result by showing that bispecial Sturmian wo…
Special factors and the combinatorics of suffix and factor automata
2011
AbstractThe suffix automaton (resp. factor automaton) of a finite word w is the minimal deterministic automaton recognizing the set of suffixes (resp. factors) of w. We study the relationships between the structure of the suffix and factor automata and classical combinatorial parameters related to the special factors of w. We derive formulae for the number of states of these automata. We also characterize the languages LSA and LFA of words having respectively suffix automaton and factor automaton with the minimal possible number of states.