Extended synchronizing codewords for \(q\)-ary complete prefix codes (Q5937604)

This paper extends the results of \textit{W. M. Lam} and \textit{S. R. Kulkarni} [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 42, 984-987 (1996; Zbl 0860.94021)] that considered making the longest codeword of a binary prefix code into an extended synchronizing codeword (ESC). Lam and Kulkarni's method gives some upper bounds on the amount of overhead needed to design a prefix code with an ESC. This paper establishes lower bounds on the length of an ESC and provides an algorithm achieving these bounds.