Monoid factorisation

In mathematics, a factorisation of a free monoid is a sequence of subsets of words with the property that every word in the free monoid can be written as a concatenation of elements drawn from the subsets. The Chen–Fox–Lyndon theorem states that the Lyndon words furnish a factorisation. The Schützenberger theorem relates the definition in terms of a multiplicative property to an additive property.

Let A^* be the free monoid on an alphabet A. Let X_i be a sequence of subsets of A^* indexed by a totally ordered index set I. A factorisation of a word w in A^* is an expression

with ${\displaystyle x_{i_{j}}\in X_{i_{j}}}$ and ${\displaystyle i_{1}\geq i_{2}\geq \ldots \geq i_{n}}$.

A Lyndon word over a totally ordered alphabet A is a word which is lexicographically less than all its rotations. The Chen–Fox–Lyndon theorem states that every string may be formed in a unique way by concatenating a non-increasing sequence of Lyndon words. Hence taking X_l to be the singleton set {l} for each Lyndon word l, with the index set L of Lyndon words ordered lexicographically, we obtain a factorisation of A^*. Such a factorisation can be found in linear time.

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