Periodicity and Unbordered Words: A Proof of the Extended Duval Conjecture

dc.creatorHarju, Tero
dc.creatorNowotka, Dirk
dc.date2003-05-23
dc.date2003-05-25
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T03:19:43Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T03:19:43Z
dc.descriptionThe relationship between the length of a word and the maximum length of its unbordered factors is investigated in this paper. Consider a finite word w of length n. We call a word bordered, if it has a proper prefix which is also a suffix of that word. Let f(w) denote the maximum length of all unbordered factors of w, and let p(w) denote the period of w. Clearly, f(w) < p(w)+1. We establish that f(w) = p(w), if w has an unbordered prefix of length f(w) and n > 2f(w)-2. This bound is tight and solves the stronger version of a 21 years old conjecture by Duval. It follows from this result that, in general, n > 3f(w)-3 implies f(w) = p(w) which gives an improved bound for the question asked by Ehrenfeucht and Silberger in 1979.
dc.description16 pages
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0305039
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0305039
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/31573
dc.subjectDiscrete Mathematics
dc.subjectF.4.m
dc.titlePeriodicity and Unbordered Words: A Proof of the Extended Duval Conjecture
dc.typetext

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