Finding automatic sequences with few correlations

Abstract

Abstract Although automatic sequences are very simple algorithmically, some of them have pseudo-random properties. In particular, some automatic sequences such as the Golay–Shapiro sequence are known to be 2-uncorrelated, meaning that they have the same correlations of order 2 as a uniform random sequence. However, the existence of ℓ-uncorrelated automatic sequences (for ℓ ⩾ 3) was left as an open question in a recent paper of Marcovici, Stoll and Tahay. We exhibit binary block-additive sequences that are 3-uncorrelated and, with the help of analytical results supplemented by an exhaustive search, we present a complete picture of the correlation properties of binary block-additive sequences of rank r ⩽ 5, and ternary sequences of rank r ⩽ 3.