Algebraic properties of word equations (Q2343519)

Since the proof of Ehrenfeucht's conjecture, the question concerning the maximal size of independent systems of word equations moved to the center of investigation. Recently, a new idea of encoding word equations within the language of polynomial algebra allowed to limit the size of independent systems that have solutions with maximal possible rank. In this paper, the already existing results are translated into irreducible factorization of multivariate polynomials. Two pairs of upper bounds are obtained: the first ones are bounds on the number of pairwise linearly nonequivalent solutions of rank \(n-1\) of two strongly independent equations in \(n\) unknowns, and the second ones are bounds on the maximal size of strongly independent system of word equations.