Pascal Ochem ; Théo Pierron - 4-tangrams are 4-avoidable

dmtcs:15310 - Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science, July 9, 2025, vol. 27:3 - https://doi.org/10.46298/dmtcs.15310
4-tangrams are 4-avoidableArticle

Authors: Pascal Ochem ; Théo Pierron

    A tangram is a word in which every letter occurs an even number of times. Thus it can be cut into parts that can be arranged into two identical words. The \emph{cut number} of a tangram is the minimum number of required cuts in this process. Tangrams with cut number one corresponds to squares. For $k\ge1$, let $t(k)$ denote the minimum size of an alphabet over which an infinite word avoids tangrams with cut number at most~$k$. The existence of infinite ternary square-free words shows that $t(1)=t(2)=3$. We show that $t(3)=t(4)=4$, answering a question from Dębski, Grytczuk, Pawlik, Przybyło, and Śleszyńska-Nowak.


    Volume: vol. 27:3
    Section: Combinatorics
    Published on: July 9, 2025
    Accepted on: June 26, 2025
    Submitted on: March 3, 2025
    Keywords: Combinatorics, Discrete Mathematics

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