A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Variations of the Morse-Hedlund Theorem for k-Abelian Equivalence




AuthorsKarhumaki J, Saarela A, Zamboni LQ

PublisherUNIV SZEGED, FAC SCIENCE

Publication year2017

JournalActa Cybernetica

Journal name in sourceACTA CYBERNETICA

Journal acronymACTA CYBERN

Volume23

Issue1

First page 175

Last page189

Number of pages15

ISSN0324-721X

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14232/actacyb.23.1.2017.11

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/25896377


Abstract
In this paper we investigate local-to-global phenomena for a new family of complexity functions of infinite words indexed by k >= 0. Two finite words u and v are said to be k-abelian equivalent if for all words x of length less than or equal to k, the number of occurrences of x in u is equal to the number of occurrences of x in v. This defines a family of equivalence relations, bridging the gap between the usual notion of abelian equivalence (when k = 1) and equality (when k = infinity). Given an infinite word w, we consider the associated complexity function which counts the number of k-abelian equivalence classes of factors of w of length n. As a whole, these complexity functions have a number of common features: Each gives a characterization of periodicity in the context of bi-infinite words, and each can be used to characterize Sturmian words in the framework of aperiodic one-sided infinite words. Nevertheless, they also exhibit a number of striking differences, the study of which is one of the main topics of our paper.

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Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 14:37