Internal Shortest Absent Word Queries in Constant Time and Linear Space

Abstract: Given a string $T$ of length $n$ over an alphabet $\Sigma\subset {1,2,\ldots,n^{O(1)}}$ of size $\sigma$, we are to preprocess $T$ so that given a range $[i,j]$, we can return a representation of a shortest string over $\Sigma$ that is absent in the fragment $T[i]\cdots T[j]$ of $T$. We present an $O(n)$-space data structure that answers such queries in constant time and can be constructed in $O(n\log_\sigma n)$ time.