Critical exponent of ternary words with few distinct palindromes

TL;DR

This paper classifies infinite ternary words with few distinct palindromes based on their critical exponent, providing insights into their structural properties.

Contribution

It offers a classification of ternary words with limited palindromes according to their critical exponent, a novel approach in combinatorics on words.

Findings

Identifies the critical exponent for classes of ternary words with few palindromes.

Provides a taxonomy linking palindrome complexity and critical exponent.

Advances understanding of the structure of words with constrained palindrome diversity.

Abstract

We study infinite ternary words that contain few distinct palindromes. In particular, we classify such words according to their critical exponent.