Note: Testing avoidability on sets of partial words is hard

Authors:
F. Blanchet-Sadri;Raphaël M. Jungers;Justin Palumbo
Affiliations:
Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 274026170, USA;Department of Mathematical Engineering, Université catholique de Louvain, Avenue Georges Lemaitre 4, B1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium;UCLA Mathematics Department, Box 951555, Los Angeles, CA 900951555, USA
Venue:
Theoretical Computer Science
Year:
2009

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Abstract

We prove that the problem of deciding whether a finite set of partial words is unavoidable is NP-hard for any alphabet of size larger than or equal to two, which is in contrast with the well-known feasability results for unavoidability of a set of full words. We raise some related questions on avoidability of sets of partial words.