We study a model of random surfaces arising in the dimer model on the honeycomb lattice. For a fixed ``wire frame'' boundary condition, as the lattice spacing $ε\to0$, Cohn, Kenyon and Propp [CKP] showed the almost sure convergence of a random surface to a non-random limit shape $Σ_0$. In [KO], Okounkov and the author showed how to parametrize the limit shapes in terms of analytic functions, in particular constructing a natural conformal structure on them. We show here that when $Σ_0$ has no facets, for a family of boundary conditions approximating the wire frame, the large-scale surface fluctuations (height fluctuations) about $Σ_0$ converge as $ε\to0$ to a Gaussian free field for the above conformal structure. We also show that the local statistics of the fluctuations near a given point $x$ are, as conjectured in [CKP], given by the unique ergodic Gibbs measure (on plane configurations) whose slope is the slope of the tangent plane of $Σ_0$ at $x$.
The dimer model on a graph embedded in the torus can be interpreted as a collection of random self-avoiding loops. In this paper, we consider the uniform toroidal honeycomb dimer model. We prove that when the mesh of the graph tends to zero and the aspect of the torus is fixed, the winding number of the collection of loops converges in law to a two-dimensional discrete Gaussian distribution. This is known to physicists in more generality from their analysis of toroidal two-dimensional critical loop models and their mapping to the massless free field on the torus. This paper contains the first …
The XOR-Ising model on a graph consists of random spin configurations on vertices of the graph obtained by taking the product at each vertex of the spins of two independent Ising models. In this paper, we explicitly relate loop configurations of the XOR-Ising model and those of a dimer model living on a decorated, bipartite version of the Ising graph. This result is proved for graphs embedded in compact surfaces of genus g. Using this fact, we then prove that XOR-Ising loops have the same law as level lines of the height function of this bipartite dimer model. At criticality, the height functi…
We consider a non-integrable model for interacting dimers on the two-dimensional square lattice. Configurations are perfect matchings of $\mathbb Z^2$, i.e. subsets of edges such that each vertex is covered exactly once ("close-packing" condition). Dimer configurations are in bijection with discrete height functions, defined on faces $\boldsymbolξ$ of $\mathbb Z^2$. The non-interacting model is "integrable" and solvable via Kasteleyn theory; it is known that all the moments of the height difference $h_{\boldsymbolξ}-h_{\boldsymbolη}$ converge to those of the massless Gaussian Free Field (GFF),…
We study a class of close-packed dimer models on the square lattice, in the presence of small but extensive perturbations that make them non-determinantal. Examples include the 6-vertex model close to the free-fermion point, and the dimer model with plaquette interaction previously analyzed in \cite{A,AL,GMT17a,GMT17b}. By tuning the edge weights, we can impose a non-zero average tilt for the height function, so that the considered models are in general not symmetric under discrete rotations and reflections. In the determinantal case, height fluctuations in the massless (or `liquid') phase sca…
We consider dimer models on graphs which are bipartite, periodic and satisfy a geometric condition called {\em isoradiality}, defined in \cite{Kenyon3}. We show that the scaling limit of the height function of any such dimer model is $1/\sqrtπ$ times a Gaussian free field. Triangular quadri-tilings were introduced in \cite{Bea}; they are dimer models on a family of isoradial graphs arising form rhombus tilings. By means of two height functions, they can be interpreted as random interfaces in dimension 2+2. We show that the scaling limit of each of the two height functions is $1/\sqrtπ$ times a…
We rigorously establish the asymptotic equivalence between the height function of interacting dimers on the square lattice and the massless Gaussian free field. Our theorem explains the microscopic origin of the sine-Gordon field theory description away from the free fermion point, which has previously been elusive. We use a novel technique, based on the combination of discrete holomorphicity with exact, constructive, renormalization group methods, which has the potential of being applicable to a variety of other non-integrable models at or close to criticality.
We study the large-scale behavior of the height function in the dimer model on the square lattice. Richard Kenyon has shown that the fluctuations of the height function on Temperleyan discretizations of a planar domain converge in the scaling limit (as the mesh size tends to zero) to the Gaussian Free Field with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We extend Kenyon's result to a more general class of discretizations. Moreover, we introduce a new factorization of the coupling function of the double-dimer model into two discrete holomorphic functions, which are similar to discrete fermions defined in …
We relate the counting of honeycomb dimer configurations on the cylinder to the counting of certain vertices in Kirillov-Reshetikhin crystal graphs. We show that these dimer configurations yield the quantum Kostka numbers of the small quantum cohomology ring of the Grassmannian, i.e. the expansion coefficients when multiplying a Schubert class repeatedly with different Chern classes. This allows one to derive sum rules for Gromov-Witten invariants.
We introduce the framework of discrete holomorphic functions on t-embeddings of weighted bipartite planar graphs; t-embeddings also appeared under the name Coulomb gauges in a recent paper arXiv:1810.05616. We argue that this framework is particularly relevant for the analysis of scaling limits of the height fluctuations in the corresponding dimer models. In particular, it unifies both Kenyon's interpretation of dimer observables as derivatives of harmonic functions on T-graphs and the notion of s-holomorphic functions originated in Smirnov's work on the critical Ising model. We develop an a p…
In this paper we investigate the height field of a dimer model/random domino tiling on the plane at a smooth-rough (i.e. gas-liquid) transition. We prove that the height field at this transition has two-point correlation functions which limit to those of the massless sine-Gordon field at the free fermion point, with parameters $(4π, z)$ where $z\in \mathbb{R}\setminus \{0\}$. The dimer model is on $ε\mathbb{Z}^2$ and has a two-periodic weight structure with weights equal to either 1 or $a=1-C|z|ε$, for $0<ε$ small (tending to zero). In order to obtain this result, we provide a direct asymptoti…
We introduce a new class of discrete approximations of planar domains that we call "hedgehog domains". In particular, this class of approximations contains two-step Aztec diamonds and similar shapes. We show that fluctuations of the height function of a random dimer tiling on hedgehog discretizations of a planar domain converge in the scaling limit to the Gaussian Free Field with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Interestingly enough, in this case the dimer model coupling function satisfies the same Riemann-type boundary conditions as fermionic observables in the Ising model. In addition, using t…
We study random surfaces which arise as height functions of random perfect matchings (a.k.a. dimer configurations) on an weighted, bipartite, doubly periodic graph G embedded in the plane. We derive explicit formulas for the surface tension and local Gibbs measure probabilities of these models. The answers involve a certain plane algebraic curve, which is the spectral curve of the Kasteleyn operator of the graph. For example, the surface tension is the Legendre dual of the Ronkin function of the spectral curve. The amoeba of the spectral curve represents the phase diagram of the dimer model. F…
We check the universality properties of the two-dimensional Abelian sandpile model by computing some of its properties on the honeycomb lattice. Exact expressions for unit height correlation functions in presence of boundaries and for different boundary conditions are derived. Also, we study the statistics of the boundaries of avalanche waves by using the theory of SLE and suggest that these curves are conformally invariant and described by SLE2.
We study the dimer model on subgraphs of the square lattice in which vertices on a prescribed part of the boundary (the free boundary) are possibly unmatched. Each such unmatched vertex is called a monomer and contributes a fixed multiplicative weight $z>0$ to the total weight of the configuration. A bijection described by Giuliani, Jauslin and Lieb relates this model to a standard dimer model but on a non-bipartite graph. The Kasteleyn matrix of this dimer model describes a walk with transition weights that are negative along the free boundary. Yet under certain assumptions, which are in part…
We use the periodic Schur process, introduced in arXiv:math/0601019v1, to study the random height function of lozenge tilings (equivalently, dimers) on an infinite cylinder distributed under two variants of the $q^{\operatorname{vol}}$ measure. Under the first variant, corresponding to random cylindric partitions, the height function converges to a deterministic limit shape and fluctuations around it are given by the Gaussian free field in the conformal structure predicted by the Kenyon-Okounkov conjecture. Under the second variant, corresponding to an unrestricted dimer model on the cylinder,…
This is the second paper in the series devoted to the study of the dimer model on t-embeddings of planar bipartite graphs. We introduce the notion of perfect t-embeddings and assume that the graphs of the associated origami maps converge to a Lorentz-minimal surface $\mathrm{S}_ξ$ as $δ\to 0$. In this setup we prove (under very mild technical assumptions) that the gradients of the height correlation functions converge to those of the Gaussian Free Field defined in the intrinsic metric of the surface $\mathrm{S}_ξ$. We also formulate several open questions motivated by our work.
Single site height probabilities in the Abelian sandpile model, and the corresponding mean height $<h>$, are directly related to the probability $P_{\rm ret}$ that a loop erased random walk passes through a nearest neighbour of the starting site (return probability). The exact values of these quantities on the square lattice have been conjectured, in particular $<h> = 25/8$ and $P_{\rm ret} = 5/16$. We provide a rigourous proof of this conjecture by using a {\it local} monomer-dimer formulation of these questions.
