The Numbers of Distinct Squares and Cubes in the Tribonacci Sequence

Abstract

The Tribonacci sequence $\mathbb{T}$ is the fixed point of the substitution $\sigma(a,b,c)=(ab,ac,a)$. In this note, we give the explicit expressions of the numbers of distinct squares and cubes in $\mathbb{T}[1,n]$ (the prefix of $\mathbb{T}$ of length $n$).