On a generalization of Christoffel words: epichristoffel words

  • Authors:

  • Geneviève Paquin

  • Affiliations:

  • Laboratoire de Mathématiques, Université de Savoie, CNRS UMR 5127, 73376 Le Bourget du Lac, France

  • Venue:
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Sturmian sequences are well-known as the ones having minimal complexity over a 2-letter alphabet. They are also the balanced sequences over a 2-letter alphabet and the sequences describing discrete lines. They are famous and have been extensively studied since the 18th century. One of the extensions of these sequences over a k-letter alphabet, with k=3, is the episturmian sequences, which generalizes a construction of Sturmian sequences using the palindromic closure operation. There exists a finite version of the Sturmian sequences called the Christoffel words. They have been known since the works of Christoffel and have interested many mathematicians. In this paper, we introduce a generalization of Christoffel words for an alphabet with 3 letters or more, using the episturmian morphisms. We call them the epichristoffel words. We define this new class of finite words and show how some of the properties of the Christoffel words can be generalized naturally or not for this class.