On maximal repetitions of arbitrary exponent

The first two authors have shown [KK99,KK00] that the sum the exponent (and thus the number) of maximal repetitions of exponent at least 2 (also called runs) is linear in the length of the word. The exponent 2 in the definition of a run may seem arbitrary. In this paper, we consider maximal repetitions of exponent strictly greater than 1.