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17 votes
3 answers
736 views

Probability that a word in the free group becomes (much) shorter?

Let $w$ be a word of length $2\ell$ chosen at random on the alphabet $\{x_1,x_1^{-1},x_2,x_2^{-1},\dotsc,x_k,x_k^{-1}\}$. By the reduction $\rho(w)$ I mean what you obtain by deleting substrings of ...
H A Helfgott's user avatar
  • 20.2k
17 votes
0 answers
536 views

Question about combinatorics on words

Let $\{a_1,a_2,...,a_n\}$ be an alphabet and let $\{u_1,...,u_n\}$ be words in this alphabet, and $a_i\mapsto u_i$ be a substitution $\phi$. Question: Is there an algorithm to check if for some $m,k$...
user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
543 views

Number of trivializations of a trivial word in the free group

Let $M$ be the free monoid on $2n$ generators $x_1,X_1,...,x_n,X_n$ and consider the set $T$ of all those elements of $M$ which map to 1 of the free group on $x_1,...,x_n$ under the homomorphism $\pi$ ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
415 views

"Bisecting" a free subgroup with respect to word length

My broad question is regarding the lengths of (reduced) words in a subgroup of a free group. As motivation, consider the free group $Gp(S)$ where $|S|=n$, that is, a free group of rank $n$. Let $S=\{...
BharatRam's user avatar
  • 949
11 votes
1 answer
328 views

Unique words in dihedral groups

Suppose $x$ is a word over the alphabet $\{0,1\}$. Let $a$, $b$ be elements of the group Dih$_k$ for some $k$. Let $\varphi=\varphi_{a,b,k}$ be the map from words over $\{0,1\}$ to elements of the ...
Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
319 views

Uniqueness of "Limit" of Cyclic Binary Strings

Set-up: By abuse, let $\sigma$ represent both the left shift operator on infinite bi-infinite strings and the cyclic left shift operator on finite strings. (Thus, for example, $\sigma(...01\bar{0}10......
Adam Quinn Jaffe's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
387 views

Concatenation of strings [closed]

We have two strings (i. e., finite tuples) $A$ and $B$. We have to find if for some positive integers $n$ and $m$, the string $A$ concatenated $n$ times equals the string $B$ concatenated $m$ times or ...
user103260's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
113 views

Computability of the "free envelope rank" of an endomorphism of a free group

Let $F$ be a free group freely generated by the finite set $S$ and $\sigma\colon F\to F$ be a group morphism. We define the free envelope rank of $\sigma$, written $r(\sigma)$, as the smallest $k$ for ...
user158448's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
189 views

Equation in the conjugacy class of a free group

I will pose the question in the form in which it originally appeared to me: Let $a,b,c,d$ be different letters in a finite alphabet $\mathcal{Z}$. Let $Q$ and $R$ be finite words with letters from $\...
Leon Staresinic's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
285 views

Cayley Graphs and Cyclically reduced words [closed]

Let $G$ be a finite group and $S$ be a symmetric generating set for $G$. (EDIT: Assume $S$ does not contain involutions!) Cyclically reduced words can be thought of as minimal length representatives ...
BharatRam's user avatar
  • 949
2 votes
0 answers
189 views

$V$-like actions of $V$

This continues my question about prefix-continuous bijections (since the answer was "yes"). Notation and conventions: Let $A$ be a finite alphabet and $L \subset A^*$ a language. Let $G$ be a group. ...
Ville Salo's user avatar
  • 6,652