On the Centralizer of a Finite Set
ICALP '00 Proceedings of the 27th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming
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We prove two results on commutation of languages. First, we show that the maximal language commuting with a three element language, i.e. its centralizer, is rational, thus giving an affirmative answer to a special case of a problem proposed by Conway in 1971. Second, we characterize all languages commuting with a three element code. The characterization is similar to the one proved by Bergman for polynomials over noncommuting variables, cf. Bergman, 1969 and Lothaire, 2000: A language commutes with a three element code X if and only if it is a union of powers of X .