Necklace (combinatorics)

In combinatorics, a k-ary necklace of length n is an equivalence class of n-character strings over an alphabet of size k, taking all rotations as equivalent.

It represents a structure with n circularly connected beads which have k available colors.

A k-ary bracelet, also referred to as a turnover (or free) necklace, is a necklace such that strings may also be equivalent under reflection.

That is, given two strings, if each is the reverse of the other, they belong to the same equivalence class.

Formally, one may represent a necklace as an orbit of the cyclic group acting on n-character strings over an alphabet of size k, and a bracelet as an orbit of the dihedral group.

One can count these orbits, and thus necklaces and bracelets, using Pólya's enumeration theorem.

There are different k-ary necklaces of length n, where

is Euler's totient function.

[1] When the beads are restricted to particular color multiset

These two formulas follow directly from Pólya's enumeration theorem applied to the action of the cyclic group

acting on the set of all functions

are the Stirling number of the second kind.

(sequence A087854 in the OEIS) are related via the Binomial coefficients: and The number of different k-ary bracelets of length n (sequence A081720 in the OEIS) is where Nk(n) is the number of k-ary necklaces of length n. This follows from Pólya's method applied to the action of the dihedral group

For a given set of n beads, all distinct, the number of distinct necklaces made from these beads, counting rotated necklaces as the same, is ⁠n!/n⁠ = (n − 1)!.

ways, and the n circular shifts of such an ordering all give the same necklace.

Similarly, the number of distinct bracelets, counting rotated and reflected bracelets as the same, is ⁠n!/2n⁠, for n ≥ 3.

If the beads are not all distinct, having repeated colors, then there are fewer necklaces (and bracelets).

The above necklace-counting polynomials give the number necklaces made from all possible multisets of beads.

Polya's pattern inventory polynomial refines the counting polynomial, using variable for each bead color, so that the coefficient of each monomial counts the number of necklaces on a given multiset of beads.

An aperiodic necklace of length n is a rotation equivalence class having size n, i.e., no two distinct rotations of a necklace from such class are equal.

According to Moreau's necklace-counting function, there are different k-ary aperiodic necklaces of length n, where μ is the Möbius function.

The two necklace-counting functions are related by:

where the sum is over all divisors of n, which is equivalent by Möbius inversion to

Each aperiodic necklace contains a single Lyndon word so that Lyndon words form representatives of aperiodic necklaces.