## Periodicity and the golden ratio.(English)Zbl 0913.68162

Summary: We prove a periodicity theorem on words that has strong analogies with the critical factorization theorem. The critical factorization theorem states, roughly speaking, a connection between local and global periods of a word; the local period at any position in the word is there defined as the shortest repetition (a square) “centered” in that position. We here take into account a different notion of local period by considering, for any position in the word, the shortest repetition “immediately to the left” from that position. In this case a repetition which is a square does not suffices and the golden ratio $$\varphi$$ (more precisely its square $$\varphi^2= 2.618\dots)$$ surprisingly appears as a threshold for establishing a connection between local and global periods of the word. We further show that the number $$\varphi^2$$ is tight for this result. Two applications are then derived. In the first we give a characterization of ultimately periodic infinite words. The second application concerns the topological perfectness of some families of infinite words.

### MSC:

 68R15 Combinatorics on words

### Keywords:

combinatiorics on words; periodicity; power-free words
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### References:

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