Publications

Authors:

Giuliani, Sara; Inenaga, Shunsuke; Lipták, Zsuzsanna; Romana, Giuseppe; Sciortino, Marinella; Urbina, Cristian

Title:

Bit Catastrophes for the Burrows-Wheeler Transform

Year:

2025

Type of item:

Articolo in Rivista

Tipologia ANVUR:

Articolo su rivista

Language:

Inglese

Format:

A Stampa

Referee:

Sì

Name of journal:

Theory of Computing Systems

ISSN of journal:

1432-4350

N° Volume:

69

Number or Folder:

2

:

Springer Verlag

Page numbers:

1-37

Keyword:

Burrows-Wheeler transform; Equal-letter run; Repetitiveness measure; Sensitivity

Short description of contents:

A bit catastrophe, loosely defined, is when a change in just one character of a string causes a significant change in the size of the compressed string. We study this phenomenon for the Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT), a string transform at the heart of several of the most popular compressors and aligners today. The parameter determining the size of the compressed data is the number of equal-letter runs of the BWT, commonly denoted r. We exhibit infinite families of strings in which insertion, deletion, resp. substitution of one character increases r from constant to Theta(log n), where n is the length of the string. These strings can be interpreted both as examples for an increase by a multiplicative or an additive Theta(log n)-factor. As regards the multiplicative factor, they attain the upper bound given by Akagi, Funakoshi, and Inenaga [Inf & Comput. 2023] of O(log n log r), since here r = O(1). We then give examples of strings in which insertion, deletion, resp. substitution of a character increases r by a Theta(\sqrt(n)) additive factor. These strings significantly improve the best known lower bound for an additive factor of Omega(log n) [Giuliani et al., SOFSEM 2021].

Web page:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00224-024-10212-9

Product ID:

145578

Handle IRIS:

11562/1161651

Last Modified:

May 10, 2025

Bibliographic citation:

Giuliani, Sara; Inenaga, Shunsuke; Lipták, Zsuzsanna; Romana, Giuseppe; Sciortino, Marinella; Urbina, Cristian, Bit Catastrophes for the Burrows-Wheeler Transform «Theory of Computing Systems» , vol. 69 , n. 2 , 2025 , pp. 1-37

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