Synchronizing codewords of q-ary Huffman codes

AbstractSome Huffman codes contain a special codeword called a synchronizing codeword, which resynchronizes the code whenever it is transmitted. We demonstrate properties of synchronizing codewords and, in particular, give some relationships between the length of the shortest codeword and the length and structure of the synchronizing codeword. A tight upper bound and some lower bounds are presented. We show that given a shortest codeword of length m and a synchronizing codeword of length r