Infinite Words Research Articles

Jumping Automata over Infinite Words

AbstractJumping automata are finite automata that read their input in a non-consecutive manner, disregarding the order of the letters in the word. We introduce and study jumping automata over infinite words. Unlike the setting of finite words, which has been well studied, for infinite words it is not clear how words can be reordered. To this end, we consider three semantics: automata that read the infinite word in some order so that no letter is overlooked, automata that can permute the word in windows of a given size k, and automata that can permute the word in windows of an existentially-quantified bound. We study expressiveness, closure properties and algorithmic properties of these models.

Repetition Factorization of Automatic Sequences

Following Inoue et al., we define a word to be a repetition if it is a (fractional) power of exponent at least [Formula: see text]. A word has a repetition factorization if it is the product of repetitions. We study repetition factorizations in several (generalized) automatic sequences, including the infinite Fibonacci word, the Thue-Morse word, paperfolding words, and the Rudin-Shapiro sequence.

<i>m</i>-aperiodic words on three-letter alphabet

The work is devoted to the study of sets of aperiodic words over a finite alphabet. The set of aperiodic words can be considered as a dictionary of some finite formal language. The existence of infinite words in two-letter or three-letter alphabets that do not contain subwords that are third powers or, respectively, squares of other words was first discovered more than a hundred years ago. S.I. Adyan in 2010 constructed an example of an infinite sequence of irreducible words, each of which is the beginning of the next and does not contain word squares in a two-letter alphabet. S.E. Arshon established the existence of an n-digit asymmetric repetition-free sequence for an alphabet of at least three letters. In the monograph by S.I. Ad- yan proved that in an alphabet of two symbols there exist infinite 3-aperiodic sequences. In the works of other authors, generalizations of aperiodicity were considered, when not only the powers of some subwords were excluded. In the monograph by A.Yu. Olshansky proved the infinity of the set of 6-aperiodic words in a two-letter alphabet and obtained an estimate for the number of such words of any given length. The au- thor previously considered the case of a three-letter alphabet only in the case of 6-aperiodic words. In this article, we prove the infinity of the set of m-aperiodic words in the three-letter alphabet at m≥4and obtain an estimate for the set of such words. The results can be applied when encoding information in space communications.

Quantum Büchi automata

Quantum finite automata (QFAs) have been extensively studied in the literature. In this paper, we define and systematically study quantum Büchi automata (QBAs) over infinite words to model the long-term behavior of quantum systems, which extend QFAs. We introduce the classes of ω-languages recognized by QBAs in probable, almost sure, strict and non-strict threshold semantics. Several pumping lemmas and closure properties for QBAs are proved. Some decision problems for QBAs are investigated. In particular, we show that there are surprisingly only at most four substantially different classes of ω-languages recognized by QBAs (out of uncountably infinite). The relationship between classical ω-languages and QBAs is clarified using our pumping lemmas. We also find an ω-language recognized by QBAs under the almost sure semantics, which is not ω-context-free.

Asymptotic behavior of the overlap gap between infinite words

We proceed with the study of ultimate periodicity properties related to overlaps between the suffixes of a left-infinite word λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda $$\\end{document} and the prefixes of a right-infinite word ρ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\rho $$\\end{document}. For a positive integer n, let g(n) be n minus the maximum length of overlaps between the suffix of λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda $$\\end{document} and the prefix of ρ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\rho $$\\end{document} of length n. In a recent publication we have shown that the function g has finite image if and only if λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda $$\\end{document} and ρ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\rho $$\\end{document} are ultimately periodic words with a same root. In this paper we give an asymptotic characterization of words λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda $$\\end{document} and ρ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\rho $$\\end{document} for which the function g has finite image. We prove that this condition is true if and only if the sequence (g(n)/n)n\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\big (g(n)/n\\big )_n$$\\end{document} tends to zero

Critical Exponent of Binary Words with Few Distinct Palindromes

We study infinite binary words that contain few distinct palindromes. In particular, we classify such words according to their critical exponents. This extends results by Fici and Zamboni [TCS 2013]. Interestingly, the words with 18 and 20 palindromes happen to be morphic images of the fixed point of the morphism $\texttt{0}\mapsto\texttt{01}$, $\texttt{1}\mapsto\texttt{21}$, $\texttt{2}\mapsto\texttt{0}$.

On abelian closures of infinite non-binary words

Two finite words u and v are called abelian equivalent if each letter occurs equally many times in both u and v. The abelian closure A(x) of an infinite word x is the set of infinite words y such that, for each factor u of y, there exists a factor v of x which is abelian equivalent to u. The notion of an abelian closure gives a characterization of Sturmian words: among uniformly recurrent binary words, periodic and aperiodic Sturmian words are exactly those words for which A(x) equals the shift orbit closure Ω(x). In this paper, we investigate how this property extends to non-binary words. We consider the abelian closures of most natural generalizations of Sturmian words to non-binary alphabets, such as balanced words and minimal complexity words. We characterize the abelian closures of words in these families and show that in both families, there exist both words which satisfy the property A(x)=Ω(x) and which do not. We observe that for Arnoux-Rauzy words, we always have a strict inclusion Ω(x)⊂A(x). We also consider abelian closures of general subshifts and make some initial observations of their abelian closures and pose some related open questions.

Top-down complementation of automata on finite trees

We present a new complementation construction for nondeterministic automata on finite trees. The traditional complementation involves determinization of the corresponding bottom-up automaton (recall that top-down deterministic automata are less powerful than nondeterministic automata, whereas bottom-up deterministic automata are equally powerful).The construction works directly in a top-down fashion, therefore without determinization. The main advantages of this construction are: (i) in the special case of finite words it boils down to the standard subset construction (which is not the case of the traditional bottom-up complementation construction), and (ii) it illustrates the core argument of the complementation lemma for infinite trees, central in the proof of Rabin's tree theorem, in a simpler setting where issues related to acceptance conditions over infinite words and determinacy of infinite games are not present.

On Extended Boundary Sequences of Morphic and Sturmian Words

Generalizing the notion of the boundary sequence introduced by Chen and Wen, the $n$th term of the $\ell$-boundary sequence of an infinite word is the finite set of pairs $(u,v)$ of prefixes and suffixes of length $\ell$ appearing in factors $uyv$ of length $n+\ell$ ($n\ge \ell\ge 1$). Otherwise stated, for increasing values of $n$, one looks for all pairs of factors of length $\ell$ separated by $n-\ell$ symbols.
 For the large class of addable abstract numeration systems $S$, we show that if an infinite word is $S$-automatic, then the same holds for its $\ell$-boundary sequence. In particular, they are both morphic (or generated by an HD0L system). To precise the limits of this result, we discuss examples of non-addable numeration systems and $S$-automatic words for which the boundary sequence is nevertheless $S$-automatic and conversely, $S$-automatic words with a boundary sequence that is not $S$-automatic. In the second part of the paper, we study the $\ell$-boundary sequence of a Sturmian word. We show that it is obtained through a sliding block code from the characteristic Sturmian word of the same slope.
 We also show that it is the image under a morphism of some other characteristic Sturmian word.

Topologies for Finite Words: Compatibility with the Cantor Topology

Infinite words are often considered as limits of finite words. As topological methods have been proved to be useful in the theory of ω-languages it seems to be providing to include finite and infinite words into one (topological) space. In most cases this results in a poor topological structure induced on the subspace of finite words. In the present paper we investigate the possibility to link topologies in the space of finite words with a topology in the space of infinite words via a natural mapping. A requirement in this linking of topologies consists in the compatibility of the topological properties (openness, closedness etc.) of images with preimages and vice versa. Here, we show that choosing for infinite words the natural topology of the CANTOR space and the δ-limit as linking mapping there are several natural topologies on the space of finite words compatible with the topology of the CANTOR space. It is interesting to observe that besides the well-known prefix topology there are at least two more whose origin is from language theory – centers and supercenters of languages. We show that several of these topologies on the space of finite words fit into a class of ℒ-topologies and exhibit their special properties w.r.t. to the compatibility with the CANTOR topology.

A Small Morphism for which the Fixed Point has an Abelian Critical Exponent Less than 2

It is known that there are infinite words over finite alphabets with Abelian critical exponent arbitrarily close to 1; however, the construction previously used involves huge alphabets. In this note we give a short cyclic morphism (length 13) over an 8-letter alphabet for which the fixed point has an Abelian critical exponent less than 1.8.

Monochromatic arithmetic progressions in automatic sequences with group structure

We determine asymptotic growth rates for lengths of monochromatic arithmetic progressions in certain automatic sequences. In particular, we look at (one-sided) fixed points of aperiodic, primitive, bijective substitutions and spin substitutions, which are generalisations of the Thue–Morse and Rudin–Shapiro substitutions, respectively. For such infinite words, we show that there exists a subsequence {dn} of differences along which the maximum length A(dn) of a monochromatic arithmetic progression (with fixed difference dn) grows at least polynomially in dn. Explicit upper and lower bounds for the growth exponent can be derived from a finite group associated to the substitution. As an application, we obtain bounds for a van der Waerden-type number for a class of colourings parametrised by the size of the alphabet and the length of the substitution.

Finite and infinite closed-rich words

A word is called closed if it has a prefix which is also its suffix and there is no internal occurrences of this prefix in the word. In this paper we study words that are rich in closed factors, i.e., which contain the maximal possible number of distinct closed factors. As the main result, we show that for finite words the asymptotics of the maximal number of distinct closed factors in a word of length n is n26. For infinite words, we show that there exist words such that each their factor of length n contains a quadratic number of distinct closed factors, with uniformly bounded constant; we call such words infinite closed-rich. We provide several necessary and some sufficient conditions for a word to be infinite closed rich. For example, we show that all linearly recurrent words are closed-rich. We provide a characterization of rich words among Sturmian words. Certain examples we provide involve non-constructive methods.

Weighted Linear Dynamic Logic

We introduce a weighted linear dynamic logic (weighted LDL for short) and show the expressive equivalence of its formulas to weighted rational expressions. This adds a new characterization for recognizable series to the fundamental Schützenberger theorem. Surprisingly, the equivalence does not require any restriction to our weighted LDL. Our results hold over arbitrary (resp. totally complete) semirings for finite (resp. infinite) words. As a consequence, the equivalence problem for weighted LDL formulas over fields is decidable in doubly exponential time. In contrast to classical logics, we show that our weighted LDL is expressively incomparable to weighted LTL for finite words. We determine a fragment of the weighted LTL such that series over finite and infinite words definable by LTL formulas in this fragment are definable also by weighted LDL formulas. This is an extended version of [17].

Synthesizing Computable Functions from Rational Specifications Over Infinite Words

The synthesis problem asks to automatically generate, if it exists, an algorithm from a specification of correct input-output pairs. In this paper, we consider the synthesis of computable functions of infinite words, for a classical Turing computability notion over infinite inputs. We consider specifications which are rational relations of infinite words, i.e., specifications defined by non-deterministic parity transducers. We prove that the synthesis problem of computable functions from rational specifications is undecidable. We provide an incomplete but sound reduction to some parity game, such that if Eve wins the game, then the rational specification is realizable by a computable function. We prove that this function is even computable by a deterministic two-way transducer. We provide a sufficient condition under which the latter game reduction is complete. This entails the decidability of the synthesis problem of computable functions, which we proved to be ExpTime-complete, for a large subclass of rational specifications, namely deterministic rational specifications. This subclass contains the class of automatic relations over infinite words, a yardstick in reactive synthesis.

Token Games and History-Deterministic Quantitative-Automata

A nondeterministic automaton is history-deterministic if its nondeterminism can be resolved by only considering the prefix of the word read so far. Due to their good compositional properties, history-deterministic automata are useful in solving games and synthesis problems. Deciding whether a given nondeterministic automaton is history-deterministic (the HDness problem) is generally a difficult task, which can involve an exponential procedure, or even be undecidable, as is the case for example with pushdown automata. Token games provide a PTime solution to the HDness problem of B\"uchi and coB\"uchi automata, and it is conjectured that 2-token games characterise HDness for all $\omega$-regular automata. We extend token games to the quantitative setting and analyse their potential to help deciding HDness of quantitative automata. In particular, we show that 1-token games characterise HDness for all quantitative (and Boolean) automata on finite words, as well as discounted-sum (DSum), Inf and Reachability automata on infinite words, and that 2-token games characterise HDness of LimInf and LimSup automata, as well as Sup automata on infinite words. Using these characterisations, we provide solutions to the HDness problem of Safety, Reachability, Inf and Sup automata on finite and infinite words in PTime, of DSum automata on finite and infinite words in NP$\cap$co-NP, of LimSup automata in quasipolynomial time, and of LimInf automata in exponential time, where the latter two are only polynomial for automata with a logarithmic number of weights.

Combinatorics on words obtaining by k to k substitution and k to k exchange of a letter on modulo-recurrent words

We introduce two new concepts which are the $k$ to $k$ substitution and $k$ to $k$ exchange of a letter on infinite words. After studying the return words and the special factors of words obtaining by these applications on Sturmian words and modulo-recurrent words. Next, we establish the complexity functions of these words. Finally, we determine the palindromic complexity of these words.

Infinite Wordle and the mastermind numbers

AbstractI consider the natural infinitary variations of the games Wordle and Mastermind, as well as their game‐theoretic variations Absurdle and Madstermind, considering these games with infinitely long words and infinite color sequences and allowing transfinite game play. For each game, a secret codeword is hidden, which the codebreaker attempts to discover by making a series of guesses and receiving feedback as to their accuracy. In Wordle with words of any size from a finite alphabet of n letters, including infinite words or even uncountable words, the codebreaker can nevertheless always win in n steps. Meanwhile, the mastermind number , defined as the smallest winning set of guesses in infinite Mastermind for sequences of length ω over a countable set of colors without duplication, is uncountable, but the exact value turns out to be independent of , for it is provably equal to the eventually different number , which is the same as the covering number of the meager ideal . I thus place all the various mastermind numbers, defined for the natural variations of the game, into the hierarchy of cardinal characteristics of the continuum.

A first-order logic characterization of safety and co-safety languages

Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) is one of the most popular temporal logics, that comes into play in a variety of branches of computer science. Among the various reasons of its widespread use there are its strong foundational properties: LTL is equivalent to counter-free omega-automata, to star-free omega-regular expressions, and (by Kamp's theorem) to the First-Order Theory of Linear Orders (FO-TLO). Safety and co-safety languages, where a finite prefix suffices to establish whether a word does not belong or belongs to the language, respectively, play a crucial role in lowering the complexity of problems like model checking and reactive synthesis for LTL. SafetyLTL (resp., coSafetyLTL) is a fragment of LTL where only universal (resp., existential) temporal modalities are allowed, that recognises safety (resp., co-safety) languages only. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a fragment of FO-TLO, called SafetyFO, and of its dual coSafetyFO, which are expressively complete with respect to the LTL-definable safety and co-safety languages. We prove that they exactly characterize SafetyLTL and coSafetyLTL, respectively, a result that joins Kamp's theorem, and provides a clearer view of the characterization of (fragments of) LTL in terms of first-order languages. In addition, it gives a direct, compact, and self-contained proof that any safety language definable in LTL is definable in SafetyLTL as well. As a by-product, we obtain some interesting results on the expressive power of the weak tomorrow operator of SafetyLTL, interpreted over finite and infinite words. Moreover, we prove that, when interpreted over finite words, SafetyLTL (resp. coSafetyLTL) devoid of the tomorrow (resp., weak tomorrow) operator captures the safety (resp., co-safety) fragment of LTL over finite words.

The Lexicographically Least Square-Free Word with a Given Prefix

The lexicographically least square-free infinite word on the alphabet of non-negative integers with a given prefix $p$ is denoted $L(p)$. When $p$ is the empty word, this word was shown by Guay-Paquet and Shallit to be the ruler sequence. For other prefixes, the structure is significantly more complicated. In this paper, we show that $L(p)$ reflects the structure of the ruler sequence for several words $p$. We provide morphisms that generate $L(n)$ for letters $n=1$ and $n\geq3$, and $L(p)$ for most families of two-letter words $p$.