OFFSET
1,4
COMMENTS
For example, aaabbb is not a (finite) palindrome but it is a periodic palindrome. Permuting the symbols will not change the structure.
For odd n, a palindrome cannot be the complement of itself, so a(n) is given by A284855(n,2)/2 - 1. - Andrew Howroyd, Apr 08 2017
REFERENCES
M. R. Nester (1999). Mathematical investigations of some plant interaction designs. PhD Thesis. University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. [See A056391 for pdf file of Chap. 2]
LINKS
Giovanni Resta, Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..1000
FORMULA
a(n) = A056503(n) - 1.
a(2n + 1) = 2^n - 1. - Andrew Howroyd, Apr 07 2017
EXAMPLE
From Andrew Howroyd, Apr 07 2017: (Start)
Example for n=6:
Periodic symmetry means results are either in the form abccba or abcdcb.
There are 3 binary words in the form abccba that start with 0 and contain a 1 which are 001100, 010010, 011110. Of these, 011110 is equivalent to 001100 after rotation.
There are 7 binary words in the form abcdcb that start with 0 and contain a 1 which are 000100, 001010, 001110, 010001, 010101, 011011, 011111. Of these, 011111 is equivalent to 000100, 010001 is equivalent to 001010 and 011011 is equivalent to 010010 from the first set.
There are therefore a total of 7 + 3 - 4 = 6 equivalence classes so a(6) = 6.
(End)
MATHEMATICA
b[n_] := (1/4)*(7 - (-1)^n)*2^((1/4)*(2*n + (-1)^n - 1));
c[0] = 1;
c[n_] := c[n] = If[EvenQ[n], 2^(n/2 - 1) + c[n/2], 2^((n - 1)/2)];
a[n_] := If[OddQ[n], b[n]/2, (1/2)*(b[n] + c[n/2])] - 1;
Array[a, 45] (* Jean-François Alcover, Jun 29 2018, after Andrew Howroyd *)
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn
AUTHOR
EXTENSIONS
a(17)-a(45) from Andrew Howroyd, Apr 07 2017
STATUS
approved