Note: Palindrome positions in ternary square-free words

  • Authors:
  • James D. Currie

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Winnipeg, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

We answer a question of Bresar et al. about the structure of non-repetitive words: For any sequence A of positive integers with large enough gaps, there is a ternary non-repetitive word having a length 3 palindrome starting at each position a@?A. In fact, we can find ternary non-repetitive words such that for each a@?A, the length 3 subword starting at position a is a palindrome or not, as one chooses. This arbitrariness in the positioning of subwords contrasts markedly with the situation for binary overlap-free words.