Palindromic prefixes and episturmian words (Q855827)

The author studies infinite words on a finite alphabet that have ``abundant'' palindrome prefixes, namely such that the sequence \((n_i)_{i\geq 1}\) of all lengths of their palindrome prefixes satisfy \(n_i\to +\infty\) and \(n_{i+1}\leq 2n_i\) \(\forall i\geq 1\). The class of these words contains the Sturmian and epi-Sturmian infinite words. The author gives in particular a fine study of the set of real numbers that can be written as \(\varlimsup{n_{i+1}\over n_i}\) for a word with abundant palindrome prefixes. Among several nice results, let us cite the following: if \(w\) is a nonperiodic word with abundant palindromic prefixes that satisfies an extra technical condition, if furthermore \(\varlimsup{n_{i+1}\over n_i}< \sqrt{3}\), then the word \(w\) is binary and characteristic Sturmian. Interestingly enough the origin of the notion addressed here is a problem of simultaneous Diophantine approximation (see \textit{D. Roy} [C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 336, No. 1, 1--6 (2003; Zbl 1038.11042)]; the author [ibid. 339, No. 10, 679--682 (2004; Zbl 1073.11048)], and math.NT/0509508).