Problem

Source: Iranian 3rd round Combinatorics exam P4 - 2014

Tags: combinatorics proposed, combinatorics



A word is formed by a number of letters of the alphabet. We show words with capital letters. A sentence is formed by a number of words. For example if $A=aa$ and $B=ab$ then the sentence $AB$ is equivalent to $aaab$. In this language, $A^n$ indicates $\underbrace{AA \cdots A}_{n}$. We have an equation when two sentences are equal. For example $XYX=YZ^2$ and it means that if we write the alphabetic letters forming the words of each sentence, we get two equivalent sequences of alphabetic letters. An equation is simplified, if the words of the left and the right side of the sentences of the both sides of the equation are different. Note that every word contains one alphabetic letter at least. $\text{a})$We have a simplified equation in terms of $X$ and $Y$. Prove that both $X$ and $Y$ can be written in form of a power of a word like $Z$.($Z$ can contain only one alphabetic letter). $\text{b})$ Words $W_1,W_2,\cdots , W_n$ are the answers of a simplified equation. Prove that we can produce these $n$ words with fewer words. $\text{c})$ $n$ words $W_1,W_2,\cdots , W_n$ are the answers of a simplified system of equations. Define graph $G$ with vertices ${1,2 \cdots ,n}$ such that $i$ and $j$ are connected if in one of the equations, $W_i$ and $W_j$ be the two words appearing in the right side of each side of the equation.($\cdots W_i = \cdots W_j$). If we denote by $c$ the number of connected components of $G$, prove that these $n$ words can be produced with at most $c$ words. Proposed by Mostafa Einollah Zadeh Samadi