Efficiently computing runs on a trie

A maximal repetition, or run, in a string, is a maximal periodic substring whose smallest period is at most half the length of the substring. In this paper, we consider runs that correspond to a path on a trie, or in other words, on a rooted edge-labeled tree where the endpoints of the path must be a descendant/ancestor of the other. For a trie with $n$ edges, we show that the number of runs is less than $n$. We also show an asymptotic lower bound on the maximum density of runs in tries: ${\lim }_{n\to \mathrm{\infty }}{\rho }_{\mathcal{T}}(n)\mathrm{/}n\ge 0.993238$ where ${\rho }_{\mathcal{T}}(n)$ is the maximum number of runs in a trie with $n$ edges. Furthermore, we also show an $O(n\log \log n)$ time and $O(n)$ space algorithm for finding all runs.