Ergodic Infinite Permutations of Minimal Complexity

An infinite permutation can be defined as a linear ordering of the set of natural numbers. Similarly to infinite words, a complexity p(n) of an infinite permutation is defined as a function counting the number of its factors of length n. For infinite words, a classical result of Morse and Hedlind, 1940, states that if the complexity of an infinite word satisfies p(n) ≤ n for some n, then the word is ultimately periodic. Hence minimal complexity of aperiodic words is equal to n + 1, and words with such complexity are called Sturmian. For infinite permutations this does not hold: There exist aperiodic permutations with complexity functions of arbitrarily slow growth, and hence there are no permutations of minimal complexity. In the paper we introduce a new notion of ergodic permutation, i.e., a permutation which can be defined by a sequence of numbers from [0, 1], such that the frequency of its elements in any interval is equal to the length of that interval. We show that the minimal complexity of an ergodic permutation is p(n) = n, and that the class of ergodic permutations of minimal complexity coincides with the class of so-called Sturmian permutations, directly related to Sturmian words.