A note on 3iet preserving morphisms

Abstract

An infinite word, which is aperiodic and codes the orbit of a transformation of the exchange of three intervals is called 3iet word. Such a word is thus a natural generalization of a sturmian word to a word over 3-letter alphabet. A morphism is said to be 3iet preserving if it maps any 3iet word to another 3iet word. It is known that the monoid of morphisms preserving sturmian words is finitely generated. On the contrary, in this note we prove that the monoid of 3iet preserving morphisms is not finitely generated, that is, there are infinitely many 3iet preserving morphisms, which cannot be written as a non-trivial decomposition of other 3iet preserving morphisms.