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Equations on partial words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2007

Francine Blanchet-Sadri ,
D. Dakota Blair  and
Rebeca V. Lewis
Francine Blanchet-Sadri
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro, North Carolina 27402–6170, USA; blanchet@uncg.edu A research assignment from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is gratefully acknowledged. Some of this assignment was spent at the LIAFA: Laboratoire d'Informatique Algorithmique: Fondements et Applications of Université Paris 7, Paris, France, and at the University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary.
D. Dakota Blair
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843–3368, USA.
Rebeca V. Lewis
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Tennessee Tech University, Box 5054, Cookeville, TN 38505–0001, USA.
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Abstract

It is well-known that some of the most basic properties of words, like the commutativity (xy = yx) and the conjugacy (xz = zy), can be expressed as solutions of word equations. An important problem is to decide whether or not a given equation on words has a solution. For instance, the equation xMyN = zP has only periodic solutions in a free monoid, that is, if xMyN = zP holds with integers m,n,p ≥ 2, then there exists a word w such that x, y, z are powers of w. This result, which received a lot of attention, was first proved by Lyndon and Schützenberger for free groups. In this paper, we investigate equations on partial words. Partial words are sequences over a finite alphabet that may contain a number of “do not know” symbols. When we speak about equations on partial words, we replace the notion of equality (=) with compatibility (↑). Among other equations, we solve xy ↑ yx, xz ↑ zy, and special cases of xmyn ↑ zp for integers m,n,p ≥ 2. 


Keywords

Equations on wordsequations on partial wordscommutativityconjugacyfree monoid.
Type
Research Article
Information
RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 23 - 39
Copyright
© EDP Sciences, 2008

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