ON THE PALINDROMIC COMPLEXITY OF INFINITE WORDS

Abstract

We study the problem of constructing infinite words having a prescribed finite set P of palindromes. We first establish that the language of all words with palindromic factors in P is rational. As a consequence we derive that there exists, with some additional mild condition, infinite words having P as palindromic factors. We prove that there exist periodic words having the maximum number of palindromes as in the case of Sturmian words, by providing a simple and easy to check condition. Asymmetric words, those that are not the product of two palindromes, play a fundamental role and an enumeration is provided.