Balanced Fibonacci word rectangles, and beyond

Abstract

Following a recent paper of Anselmo et al., we consider $m\times n$ rectangular matrices formed from the Fibonacci word, and we show that their balance properties can be solved with a finite automaton. We also generalize the result to every Sturmian characteristic word corresponding to a quadratic irrational. Finally, we also examine the analogous question for the Tribonacci word and the Thue-Morse word.