On the Number of Non-equivalent Parameterized Squares in a String

A string $s$ is called a parameterized square when $s=xy$ for strings $x$, $y$ and $x$ and $y$ are parameterized equivalent. Kociumaka et al. showed the number of parameterized squares, which are non-equivalent in parameterized equivalence, in a string of length $n$ that contains $\sigma$ distinct characters is at most $2\sigma !n$ [TCS 2016]. In this paper, we show that the maximum number of non-equivalent parameterized squares is less than $\sigma n$, which significantly improves the best-known upper bound by Kociumaka et al.