State complexity of power

The number of states in a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) recognizing the language $L^k$, where $L$ is regular language recognized by an $n$-state DFA, and $k?2$ is a constant, is shown to be at most $n{2}^{(k?1)n}$ and at least $(n?k)2^{(k?1)(n?k)}$ in the worst case, for every $n>k$ and for every alphabet of at least six letters. Thus, the state complexity of $L^k$ is $\Theta \left(n{2}^{(k?1)n}\right)$. In the case $k=3$ the corresponding state complexity function for $L^3$ is determined as $\frac{6n?3}{8}{4}^n?(n?1)2^n?n$ with the lower bound witnessed by automata over a four-letter alphabet. The nondeterministic state complexity of $L^k$ is demonstrated to be $nk$. This bound is shown to be tight over a two-letter alphabet.