A periodicity property of iterated morphisms

Abstract

Suppose ƒ : X* → X* is a morphism and u,v ∈ X*. For every nonnegative integer n, let zn be the longest common prefix of ƒn(u) and ƒn(v), and let un,vn ∈ X* be words such that ƒn(u) = znun and ƒn(v) = znvn. We prove that there is a positive integer q such that for any positive integer p, the prefixes of un (resp. vn) of length p form an ultimately periodic sequence having period q. Further, there is a value of q which works for all words u,v ∈ X*.