On Some Interesting Ternary Formulas

Abstract

We obtain the following results about the avoidance of ternary formulas. Up to renaming of the letters, the only infinite ternary words avoiding the formula $ABCAB.ABCBA.ACB.BAC$ (resp. $ABCA.BCAB.BCB.CBA$) have the same set of recurrent factors as the fixed point of $0\mapsto 012$, $1\mapsto 02$, $2\mapsto 1$. The formula $ABAC.BACA.ABCA$ is avoided by polynomially many binary words and there exists arbitrarily many infinite binary words with different sets of recurrent factors that avoid it. If every variable of a ternary formula appears at least twice in the same fragment, then the formula is $3$-avoidable. The pattern $ABACADABCA$ is unavoidable for the class of $C_4$-minor-free graphs with maximum degree~$3$. This disproves a conjecture of Grytczuk. The formula $ABCA.ACBA$, or equivalently the palindromic pattern $ABCADACBA$, has avoidability index $4$.