Universal Lyndon Words

A word w over an alphabet Sigma is a Lyndon word if there exists an order defined on Sigma for which w is lexicographically smaller than all of its conjugates ( other than itself). We introduce and study universal Lyndon words, which are words over an n-letter alphabet that have length n! and such that all the conjugates are Lyndon words. We show that universal Lyndon words exist for every n and exhibit combinatorial and structural properties of these words. We then define particular prefix codes, which we call Hamiltonian lex-codes, and show that every Hamiltonian lex-code is in bijection with the set of the shortest unrepeated prefixes of the conjugates of a universal Lyndon word. This allows us to give an algorithm for constructing all the universal Lyndon words.