Cyclic complexity of words (Q507796)

A new complexity function on words, called cyclic complexity, is introduced and studied. This function counts the number of conjugacy classes of factors of length \(n\) of an infinite word \(x\). Cyclic complexity distinguishes between Sturmian words of different slopes, yet can not provide a strict characterization of Sturmian words. A very useful extension of the Morse-Hedlund theorem is also presented and used in this paper.