On balanced and abelian properties of circular words over a ternary alphabet (Q2098185)

Balanced binary circular words are well understood in the literature: they are the circular words defined by powers of Christoffel words. These circular words are characterised by the property that their abelian complexity function is bounded by \(2\). Extending the latter characterisation to the ternary setting, the authors classify the set \([\mathcal{M}_3]\) of all circular words containing exactly three distinct letters and for which the abelian complexity function is bounded by \(3\). The classification involves the balanced ternary circular words \([\mathcal{B}_3]\) and so-called \emph{twisted words} obtained from modifying powers of Christoffel words (to which a mapping is applied). In particular, they show that \([\mathcal{B}_3]\) is a proper subset of \([\mathcal{M}_3]\). The authors also characterise those balanced ternary circular words in \([\mathcal{B}_3]\) for which the abelian complexity function is constant \(3\). Using tools developed in the paper, the authors further generalise a result of \textit{G. Richomme} et al. [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 83, No. 1, 79--95 (2011; Zbl 1211.68300)] by constructing an infinite family of morphisms \(\varphi \colon \{0,1\} \to \{0,1,2\}^*\) for which the \(\varphi\)-image of any aperiodic bi-infinite word has constant abelian complexity \(3\).