Abelian periods of factors of Sturmian words

Abstract: We study the abelian period sets of Sturmian words, which are codings of irrational rotations on a one-dimensional torus. The main result states that the minimum abelian period of a factor of a Sturmian word of angle

a l p h a

with continued fraction expansion

[0; a_{1}, a_{2}, l d o t s]

is either

t q_{k}

with

1 l e q t l e q a_{k + 1}

(a multiple of a denominator

q_{k}

of a convergent of

a l p h a

) or

q_{k, e l l}

(a denominator

q_{k, e l l}

of a semiconvergent of

a l p h a

). This result generalizes a result of Fici et. al stating that the abelian period set of the Fibonacci word is the set of Fibonacci numbers. A characterization of the Fibonacci word in terms of its abelian period set is obtained as a corollary.

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