A note on the maximum number of k-powers in a finite word

Abstract: A emph{power} is a word of the form

u n d e r b r a c e {u u ... u}_{k; e x t t i m e s}

, where

u

is a word and

k

is a positive integer; the power is also called a {em

k

-power} and

k

is its {em exponent}. We prove that for any

k g e 2

, the maximum number of different non-empty

k

-power factors in a word of length

n

is between

f r a c n k - 1 - T h e t a (s q r t n)

and

f r a c n - 1 k - 1

. We also show that the maximum number of different non-empty power factors of exponent at least 2 in a length-

n

word is at most

n - 1

. Both upper bounds generalize the recent upper bound of

n - 1

on the maximum number of different square factors in a length-

n

word by Brlek and Li (2022).

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