We study the measurable dynamical properties of the interval map generated by the model-case erasing substitution $\rho $ , defined by

$$ \begin{align*} \rho(00)=\text{empty word},\quad \rho(01)=1,\quad \rho(10)=0,\quad \rho(11)=01. \end{align*} $$

This paper provides a systematic study of fundamental combinatorial properties of one-dimensional, two-sided infinite simple Toeplitz subshifts. Explicit formulas for the complexity function, the palindrome complexity function and the repetitivity function are proved. Moreover, a complete description of the de Bruijn graphs of the subshifts is given. Finally, the Boshernitzan condition is characterized in terms of combinatorial quantities, based on a recent result of Liu and Qu [Uniform convergence of Schrödinger cocycles over simple Toeplitz subshift. Ann. Henri Poincaré12(1) (2011), 153–172]. Particular simple characterizations are provided for simple Toeplitz subshifts that correspond to the orbital Schreier graphs of the family of Grigorchuk’s groups, a class of subshifts that serves as the main example throughout the paper.

Let $r\geq 2$ and $s\geq 2$ be multiplicatively dependent integers. We establish a lower bound for the sum of the block complexities of the $r$-ary expansion and the $s$-ary expansion of an irrational real number, viewed as infinite words on $\{0,1,\ldots ,r-1\}$ and $\{0,1,\ldots ,s-1\}$, and we show that this bound is best possible.

A k-abelian cube is a word uvw, where the factors u, v, and w are either pairwise equal, or have the same multiplicities for every one of their factors of length at most k. Previously it has been shown that k-abelian cubes are avoidable over a binary alphabet for k ≥ 8. Here it is proved that this holds for k ≥ 5.

We consider a recently defined notion of k-abelian equivalence of words by concentrating on avoidance problems. The equivalence class of a word depends on the numbers of occurrences of different factors of length k for a fixed natural number k and the prefix of the word. We have shown earlier that over a ternary alphabet k-abelian squares cannot be avoided in pure morphic words for any natural number k. Nevertheless, computational experiments support the conjecture that even 3-abelian squares can be avoided over ternary alphabets. In this paper we establish the first avoidance result showing that by choosing k to be large enough we have an infinite k-abelian square-free word over three letter alphabet. In addition, this word can be obtained as a morphic image of a pure morphic word.

Pattern avoidance is an important topic in combinatorics on words which dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century when Thue constructed an infinite word over a ternary alphabet that avoids squares, i.e., a word with no two adjacent identical factors. This result finds applications in various algebraic contexts where more general patterns than squares are considered. On the other hand, Erdős raised the question as to whether there exists an infinite word that avoids abelian squares, i.e., a word with no two adjacent factors being permutations of one another. Although this question was answered affirmately years later, knowledge of abelian pattern avoidance is rather limited. Recently, (abelian) pattern avoidance was initiated in the more general framework of partial words, which allow for undefined positions called holes. In this paper, we show that any pattern p with n> 3 distinct variables of length at least 2n is abelian avoidable by a partial word with infinitely many holes, the bound on the length of p being tight. We complete the classification of all the binary and ternary patterns with respect to non-trivial abelian avoidability, in which no variable can be substituted by only one hole. We also investigate the abelian avoidability indices of the binary and ternary patterns.

Recently, Constantinescu and Ilie proved a variant of the well-known periodicity theorem of Fine and Wilf in the case of two relatively prime abelian periods and conjectured a result for the case of two non-relatively prime abelian periods. In this paper, we answer some open problems they suggested. We show that their conjecture is false but we give bounds, that depend on the two abelian periods, such that the conjecture is true for all words having length at least those bounds and show that some of them are optimal. We also extend their study to the context of partial words, giving optimal lengths and describing an algorithm for constructing optimal words.

An algorithm is corrected here that was presented as Theorem 2 in [Š. Holub, RAIRO-Theor. Inf. Appl. 40 (2006) 583–591]. It is designed to calculate the maximum length of a nontrivial word with a given set of periods.

The repetition threshold introduced by Dejean and Brandenburg is the smallest real number α such that there exists an infinite word over a k-letter alphabet that avoids β-powers for all β > α. We extend this notion to colored graphs and obtain the value of the repetition thresholds of trees and “large enough” subdivisions of graphs for every alphabet size.

In the paper we study abelian versions of the critical factorization theorem. We investigate both similarities and differences between the abelian powers and the usual powers. The results we obtained show that the constraints for abelian powers implying periodicity should be quite strong, but still natural analogies exist.

A square is the concatenation of a nonempty word with itself. A word has period p if its letters at distance p match. The exponent of a nonempty word is the quotient of its length over its smallest period. In this article we give a proof of the fact that there exists an infinite binary word which contains finitely many squares and simultaneously avoids words of exponent larger than 7/3. Our infinite word contains 12 squares, which is the smallest possible number of squares to get the property, and 2 factors of exponent 7/3. These are the only factors of exponent larger than 2. The value 7/3 introduces what we call the finite-repetition threshold of the binary alphabet. We conjecture it is 7/4 for the ternary alphabet, like its repetitive threshold.

Motivated by striking properties of the well known Fibonacci word we consider pictures which are defined by this word and its variants via so-called turtle graphics. Such a picture can be bounded or unbounded. We characterize when the picture defined by not only the Fibonacci recurrence, but also by a general recurrence formula, is bounded, the characterization being computable.

We show that there are three types of infinite words over the two-letter alphabet {0,1} that avoid the pattern AABBCABBA. These types, P, E0, and E1, differ by the factor complexity and the asymptotic frequency of the letter 0. Type P has polynomial factor complexity and letter frequency $\frac{1}{2}$. Type E0 has exponential factor complexity and the frequency of the letter 0 is at least 0.45622 and at most 0.48684. Type E1 is obtained from type E0 by exchanging 0 and 1.

This paper discusses the fundamental combinatorial question of whether or not, for a given string α, there exists a morphism σ such that σ is unambiguous with respect to α, i.e. there exists no other morphism τ satisfying τ(α) = σ(α). While Freydenberger et al. [Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci. 17 (2006) 601–628] characterise those strings for which there exists an unambiguous nonerasing morphism σ, little is known about the unambiguity of erasing morphisms, i.e. morphisms that map symbols onto the empty string. The present paper demonstrates that, in contrast to the main result by Freydenberger et al., the existence of an unambiguous erasing morphism for a given string can essentially depend on the size of the target alphabet of the morphism. In addition to this, those strings for which there exists an erasing morphism over an infinite target alphabet are characterised, complexity issues are discussed and some sufficient conditions for the (non-)existence of unambiguous erasing morphisms are given.

A well known result of Fraenkel and Simpson states that the number of distinct squares in a word of length n is bounded by 2n since at each position there are at most two distinct squares whose last occurrence starts. In this paper, we investigate squares in partial words with one hole, or sequences over a finite alphabet that have a “do not know” symbol or “hole”. A square in a partial word over a given alphabet has the form uv where u is compatible with v, and consequently, such square is compatible with a number of words over the alphabet that are squares. Recently, it was shown that for partial words with one hole, there may be more than two squares that have their last occurrence starting at the same position. Here, we prove that if such is the case, then the length of the shortest square is at most half the length of the third shortest square. As a result, we show that the number of distinct squares compatible with factors of a partial word with one hole of length n is bounded by $\frac{7n}{2}$.

In this paper, we survey the rich theory of infinite episturmian words which generalize to any finite alphabet, in a rather resembling way, the well-known family of Sturmian words on two letters. After recalling definitions and basic properties, we consider episturmian morphisms that allow for a deeper study of these words. Some properties of factors are described, including factor complexity, palindromes, fractional powers, frequencies, and return words. We also consider lexicographical properties of episturmian words, as well as their connection to the balance property, and related notions such as finite episturmian words, Arnoux-Rauzy sequences, and “episkew words” that generalize the skew words of Morse and Hedlund.

We present an on-line linear time and space algorithm to check if an integer array f is the border array of at least one string w built on a bounded or unbounded size alphabet Σ. First of all, we show a bijection between the border array of a string w and the skeleton of the DFA recognizing Σ*ω, called a string matching automaton (SMA). Different strings can have the same border array but the originality of the presented method is that the correspondence between a border array and a skeleton of SMA is independent from the underlying strings. This enables to design algorithms for validating and generating border arrays that outperform existing ones. The validating algorithm lowers the delay (maximal number of comparisons on one element of the array) from O(|w|) to 1 + min{|Σ|,1 + log2|ω|} compared to existing algorithms. We then give results on the numbers of distinct border arrays depending on the alphabet size. We also present an algorithm that checks if a given directed unlabeled graph G is the skeleton of a SMA on an alphabet of size s in linear time. Along the process the algorithm can build one string w for which G is the SMA skeleton.

We investigate the average similarity of random strings as captured by the average number of ‘cousins’ in the underlying tree structures. Analytical techniques including poissonization and the Mellin transform are used for accurate calculation of the mean. The string alphabets we consider are m-ary, and the corresponding trees are m-ary trees. Certain analytic issues arise in the m-ary case that do not have an analog in the binary case.

A set T ⊆ L is a Parikh test set of L if c(T) is a test set of c(L). We give a characterization of Parikh test sets for arbitrary language in terms of its Parikh basis, and the coincidence graph of letters.