Fazekas–Mammoliti–Mercaş–Simpson extension of the Fici–Saarela conjecture

From papers

Let ww be a binary word of length nn. An abelian square is a factor consisting of two consecutive factors with the same Parikh vector. An abelian square of the form a2ia^{2i} or b2ib^{2i}, for a positive integer ii, is called trivial.

Fazekas–Mammoliti–Mercaş–Simpson conjecture. A binary word of length nn contains at least

n4\left\lfloor \frac{n}{4}\right\rfloor

abelian squares, and if it contains exactly n4\left\lfloor \frac{n}{4}\right\rfloor abelian squares, then all the abelian squares are trivial.

This is presented as an extension of the Fici–Saarela conjecture. The supplied text gives no resolution of either the lower bound in full generality or the equality characterization.

Progress summary

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Szilard Zsolt Fazekas, Adam Mammoliti, Robert Mercas and Jamie Simpson, “Binary Words Containing Few Abelian Squares”, arXiv:2604.23188 (2026).

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.