Combinatorial properties of smooth infinite words (Q818144)

Any nonempty word \(w\) over \(\Sigma = \{1,2\}\) can be viewed as a sequence of alternating blocks of \(1\)'s and \(2\)'s. The run-length encoding \(\Delta\) gives the size of the blocks appearing in \(w\), and can be extended easily to infinite words. In this very interesting and well written paper, the authors restrict themselves to words not having \(111\) or \(222\) as factors and define the class of all infinite \textit{smooth} words. More precisely, since the operator \(\Delta\) can be iterated, an infinite word \(W\) over \(\Sigma\) is called smooth if for all nonnegative integers \(k\), we have that \(\Delta^k(W)\) is an infinite word over \(\Sigma\). It turns out that the operator \(\Delta\) has two fixpoints, \(K\) and \(1 \cdot K\), where \(K\) denotes the so-called Kolakoski word which has attracted considerable attention due to some intriguing combinatorial properties. The authors study regularities such as palindromes, squares, and overlaps in smooth words. They also investigate the question whether there exist smooth words, besides \(K\), that can be obtained as fixpoints of substitutions.