We present a proof of a conjecture about the relationship between Baxter permutations and pairs of alternating sign matrices that are produced from domino tilings of Aztec diamonds. It is shown that if and only if a tiling corresponds to a pair of ASMs that are both permutation matrices, the larger permutation matrix corresponds to a Baxter permutation.
There has been a thriving literature on both pattern-avoiding permutations of various kinds and tilings of regions using dominos or rhombuses as tiles. However, there have not as of yet been many links between these two areas of enumerative combinatorics. This paper gives one such link.
We get four quartered Aztec diamonds by dividing an Aztec diamond region by two zigzag cuts passing its center. W. Jockusch and J. Propp (in an unpublished work) found that the number of tilings of quartered Aztec diamonds is given by simple product formulas. In this paper we present a simple proof for this result.
Based on a bijection between domino tilings of an Aztec diamond and non-intersecting lattice paths, a simple proof of the Aztec diamond theorem is given in terms of Hankel determinants of the large and small Schröder numbers.
The expanded Aztec diamond is a generalized version of the Aztec diamond, with an arbitrary number of long columns and long rows in the middle. In this paper, we count the number of domino tilings of the expanded Aztec diamond. The exact number of domino tilings is given by recurrence relations of state matrices by virtue of the state matrix recursion algorithm, recently developed by the author to solve various two-dimensional regular lattice model enumeration problems.
The Aztec diamond of order $n$ is the union of lattice squares in the plane intersecting the square $|x|+|y|<n$. The Aztec diamond theorem states that the number of domino tilings of this shape is $2^{n(n+1)/2}$. It was first proved by Elkies, Kuperberg, Larsen and Propp in 1992. We give a new simple proof of this theorem.
We explore the connections between the well-studied Aztec Diamond graphs and a new family of graphs called the Half-Hexagons, discovered by Jonathan Novak. In particular, both families of graphs have very simple domino shuffling algorithms, which turn out to be intimately related. This connection allows us to prove an "arctic parabola" theorem for the Half-Hexagons as a corollary of the Arctic Circle theorem for the Aztec Diamond.
We say that two graphs are similar if their adjacency matrices are similar matrices. We show that the square grid $G_n$ of order $n$ is similar to the disjoint union of two copies of the quartered Aztec diamond $QAD_{n-1}$ of order $n-1$ with the path $P_n^{(2)}$ on $n$ vertices having edge weights equal to~2. Our proof is based on an explicit change of basis in the vector space on which the adjacency matrix acts. The arguments verifying that this change of basis works are combinatorial. In particular, this allows computing the number of spanning trees of quartered Aztec diamonds. We present a…
A Töplitz determinant whose entries are described by a q-analogue of the Narayana polynomials is evaluated by means of Laurent biorthogonal polynomials which allow of a combinatorial interpretation in terms of Schröder paths. As an application, a new proof is given to the Aztec diamond theorem by Elkies, Kuperberg, Larsen and Propp concerning domino tilings of the Aztec diamonds. The proof is based on the correspondence with non-intersecting Schröder paths developed by Eu and Fu.
The author gave a proof of a generalization of the Aztec diamond theorem for a family of $4$-vertex regions on the square lattice with southwest-to-northeast diagonals drawn in (Electron. J. Combin., 2014) by using a bijection between tilings and non-intersecting lattice paths. In this paper, we use Kuo graphical condensation to give a new proof.
This note derives the characteristic polynomial of a graph that represents nonjump moves in a generalized game of checkers. The number of spanning trees is also determined.
We generalize Aztec diamond theorem (N. Elkies, G. Kuperberg, M. Larsen, and J. Propp, Alternating-sign matrices and domino tilings, Journal Algebraic Combinatoric, 1992) by showing that the numbers of tilings of a certain family of regions in the square lattice with southwest-to-northeast diagonals drawn in are given by powers of 2. We present a proof for the generalization by using a bijection between domino tilings and non-intersecting lattice paths.
In this article we define a generalization of the domino shuffling algorithm for tilings of the Aztec diamond to the interacting $k$-tilings recently introduced by S. Corteel, A. Gitlin, and the first author. We describe the algorithm both in terms of dynamics on a system of colored particles and as operations on the dominos themselves.
We compute the probability of any local pattern at an arbitrary position in a random dimer configuration in a square grid with an Aztec-diamond boundary.
We give a bijective proof of the Aztec diamond theorem, stating that there are $2^{n(n+1)/2}$ domino tilings of the Aztec diamond of order $n$. The proof in fact establishes a similar result for non-intersecting families of $n+1$ Schröder paths, with horizontal, diagonal or vertical steps, linking the grid points of two adjacent sides of an $n\times n$ square grid; these families are well known to be in bijection with tilings of the Aztec diamond. Our bijection is produced by an invertible "combing" algorithm, operating on families of paths without non-intersection condition, but instead with …
We generalize a theorem of W. Jockusch and J. Propp on quartered Aztec diamonds by enumerating the tilings of quartered Aztec rectangles. We use subgraph replacement method to transform the dual graph of a quartered Aztec rectangle to the dual graph of a quartered lozenge hexagon, and then use Lindström-Gessel-Viennot methodology to find the number of tilings of a quartered lozenge hexagon.
The inverse Kasteleyn matrix of a bipartite graph holds much information about the perfect matchings of the system such as local statistics which can be used to compute local and global asymptotics. In this paper, we consider three different weightings of domino tilings of the Aztec diamond and show using recurrence relations, we can compute the inverse Kasteleyn matrix. These weights are the one-periodic weighting where the horizontal edges have one weight and the vertical edges have another weight, the q^{vol} weighting which corresponds to multiplying the product of tile weights by q if we …
We consider a generating function of the domino tilings of an Aztec rectangle with several boundary unit squares removed. Our generating function involves two statistics: the rank of the tiling and half number of vertical dominoes as in the Aztec diamond theorem by Elkies, Kuperberg, Larsen and Propp. In addition, our work deduces a combinatorial explanation for an interesting connection between the number of lozenge tilings of a semihexagon and the number of domino tilings of an Aztec rectangle.
We investigate the connection between lozenge tilings and domino tilings by introducing a new family of regions obtained by attaching two different Aztec rectangles. We prove a simple product formula for the generating functions of the tilings of the new regions, which involves the statistics as in the Aztec diamond theorem (Elkies, Kuperberg, Larsen, and Propp, J. Algebraic Combin. 1992). Moreover, we consider the connection between the generating function and MacMahon's $q$-enumeration of plane partitions fitting in a given box
We prove an asymptotic formula for the probability that, if one chooses a domino tiling of a large Aztec diamond at random according to the uniform distribution on such tilings, the tiling will contain a domino covering a given pair of adjacent lattice squares. This formula quantifies the effect of the diamond's boundary conditions on the behavior of typical tilings; in addition, it yields a new proof of the arctic circle theorem of Jockusch, Propp, and Shor. Our approach is to use the saddle point method to estimate certain weighted sums of squares of Krawtchouk polynomials (whose relevance t…
We study random domino tilings of a Double Aztec diamond, a region consisting of two overlapping Aztec diamonds. The random tilings give rise to two discrete determinantal point processes called the K-and L-particle processes. The correlation kernel of the K-particles was derived in Adler, Johansson and van Moerbeke (2011), who used it to study the limit process of the K-particles with different weights for horizontal and vertical dominos. Let the size of both, the Double Aztec diamond and the overlap, tend to infinity such that the two arctic ellipses just touch; then they show that the fluct…
We consider asymtotics of a domino tiling model on a class of domains which we call rectangular Aztec diamonds. We prove the Law of Large Numbers for the corresponding height functions and provide explicit formulas for the limit. For a special class of examples, the explicit parametrization of the frozen boundary is given. It turns out to be an algebraic curve with very special properties. Moreover, we establish the convergence of the fluctuations to the Gaussian Free Field in appropriate coordinates. Our main tool is a recently developed moment method for discrete particle systems.
Discrete and continuous non-intersecting random processes have given rise to critical "infinite dimensional diffusions", like the Airy process, the Pearcey process and variations thereof. It has been known that domino tilings of very large Aztec diamonds lead macroscopically to a disordered region within an inscribed ellipse (arctic circle in the homogeneous case), and a regular brick-like region outside the ellipse. The fluctuations near the ellipse, appropriately magnified and away from the boundary of the Aztec diamond, form an Airy process, run with time tangential to the boundary. This pa…
We introduce a family of domino tilings that includes tilings of the Aztec diamond and pyramid partitions as special cases. These tilings live in a strip of $\mathbb{Z}^2$ of the form $1 \leq x-y \leq 2\ell$ for some integer $\ell \geq 1$, and are parametrized by a binary word $w\in\{+,-\}^{2\ell}$ that encodes some periodicity conditions at infinity. Aztec diamond and pyramid partitions correspond respectively to $w=(+-)^\ell$ and to the limit case $w=+^\infty-^\infty$. For each word $w$ and for different types of boundary conditions, we obtain a nice product formula for the generating functi…
We show how to count tilings of Aztec diamonds and hexagons with defects using determinants. In several cases these determinants can be evaluated in closed form. In particular, we obtain solutions to problems 1, 2, and 10 in James Propp's list of problems on enumeration of matchings.
In this paper, we continue the study of domino-tilings of Aztec diamonds. In particular, we look at certain ways of placing ``barriers'' in the Aztec diamond, with the constraint that no domino may cross a barrier. Remarkably, the number of constrained tilings is independent of the placement of the barriers. We do not know of a combinatorial explanation of this fact; our proof uses the Jacobi-Trudi identity.
Random domino tilings of the Aztec diamond shape exhibit interesting features and some of the statistical properties seen in random matrix theory. As a statistical mechanical model it can be thought of as a dimer model or as a certain random surface. We consider the Aztec diamond with a two-periodic weighting which exhibits all three possible phases that occur in these types of models, often referred to as solid, liquid and gas. To analyze this model, we use entries of the inverse Kasteleyn matrix which give the probability of any configuration of dominoes. A formula for these entries, for thi…
We use the subgraph replacement method to investigate new properties of the tilings of regions on the square lattice with diagonals drawn in. In particular, we show that the centrally symmetric tilings of a generalization of the Aztec diamond are always enumerated by a simple product formula. This result generalizes the previous work of Ciucu (1997) and Yang (1992) about symmetric tilings of the Aztec diamond. We also use our method to prove a closed-form product formula for the number of centrally symmetric tilings of a quasi-hexagon.
In earlier work, Jockusch, Propp, and Shor proved a theorem describing the limiting shape of the boundary between the uniformly tiled corners of a random tiling of an Aztec diamond and the more unpredictable `temperate zone' in the interior of the region. The so-called arctic circle theorem made precise a phenomenon observed in random tilings of large Aztec diamonds. Here we examine a related combinatorial model called groves. Created by Carroll and Speyer as combinatorial interpretations for Laurent polynomials given by the cube recurrence, groves have observable frozen regions which we descr…
We introduce a family of planar regions, called Aztec diamonds, and study the ways in which these regions can be tiled by dominoes. Our main result is a generating function that not only gives the number of domino tilings of the Aztec diamond of order $n$ but also provides information about the orientation of the dominoes (vertical versus horizontal) and the accessibility of one tiling from another by means of local modifications. Several proofs of the formula are given. The problem turns out to have connections with the alternating sign matrices of Mills, Robbins, and Rumsey, as well as the s…
Motivated in part by Propp's intruded Aztec diamond regions, we consider hexagonal regions out of which two horizontal chains of triangular holes (called ferns) are removed, so that the chains are at the same height, and are attached to the boundary. By contrast with the intruded Aztec diamonds (whose number of domino tilings contain some large prime factors in their factorization), the number of lozenge tilings of our doubly-intruded hexagons turns out to be given by simple product formulas in which all factors are linear in the parameters. We present in fact $q$-versions of these formulas, w…
Inspired by Propp's intruded Aztec diamond regions, we consider halved hexagons in which two aligned arrays of triangular holes have been removed from their boundaries. Unlike the intruded Aztec diamonds (whose numbers of domino tilings contain some large prime factors in their factorizations), the numbers of lozenge tilings of our doubly-intruded halved hexagons are given by simple product formulas in which all factors are linear in the parameters. In this paper, we present an extensive list of exact tiling enumerations of sixteen different types of doubly-intruded halved hexagons. We also pr…
The arctic circle theorem of Jockusch, Propp, and Shor asserts that uniformly random domino tilings of an Aztec diamond of high order are frozen with asymptotically high probability outside the "arctic circle" inscribed within the diamond. A similar arctic circle phenomenon has been observed in the limiting behavior of random square Young tableaux. In this paper, we show that random domino tilings of the Aztec diamond are asymptotically related to random square Young tableaux in a more refined sense that looks also at the behavior inside the arctic circle. This is done by giving a new derivati…
This article is about measuring and visualizing distances between domino tilings. Given two tilings of a simply connected square tiled surface, we're interested in the minimum number of flips between two tilings. Given a certain shape, we're interested in computing the diameters of the flip graphs, meaning the maximal distance between any two of its tilings. Building on work of Thurston and others, we give geometric interpretations of distances which result in formulas for the diameters of the flip graphs of rectangles or Aztec diamonds.
We consider the domino tilings of an Aztec diamond with a cut-off corner of macroscopic square shape and given size, and address the bulk properties of tilings as the size is varied. We observe that the free energy exhibits a third-order phase transition when the cut-off square, increasing in size, reaches the arctic ellipse---the phase separation curve of the original (unmodified) Aztec diamond. We obtain this result by studying the thermodynamic limit of certain nonlocal correlation function of the underlying six-vertex model with domain wall boundary conditions, the so-called emptiness form…
A recent conjecture of Di Francesco states that the number of domino tilings of a certain family of regions on the square lattice is given by a product formula reminiscent of the one giving the number of alternating sign matrices. These regions, denoted ${\mathcal T}_n$, are obtained by starting with a square of side-length $2n$, cutting it in two along a diagonal by a zigzag path with step length two, and gluing to one of the resulting regions half of an Aztec diamond of order $n-1$. Inspired by the regions ${\mathcal T}_n$, we construct a family $C_{m,n}^{a,b,c,d}$ of cruciform regions gener…
Kenyon and Wilson showed how to test if a circular planar electrical network with $n$ nodes is well-connected by checking the positivity of $\binom{n}{2}$ central minors of the response matrix. Their test is based on the fact that any contiguous minor of a matrix can be expressed as a Laurent polynomial in the central minors. Moreover, the Laurent polynomial is the generating function of domino tilings of a weighted Aztec diamond. They conjectured that a larger family of minors, semicontiguous minors, can also be written in terms of domino tilings of a region on the square lattice. In this pap…
We describe random generation algorithms for a large class of random combinatorial objects called Schur processes, which are sequences of random (integer) partitions subject to certain interlacing conditions. This class contains several fundamental combinatorial objects as special cases, such as plane partitions, tilings of Aztec diamonds, pyramid partitions and more generally steep domino tilings of the plane. Our algorithm, which is of polynomial complexity, is both exact (i.e. the output follows exactly the target probability law, which is either Boltzmann or uniform in our case), and entro…
We investigate certain measures induced by families of non-intersecting paths in domino tilings of the Aztec diamond, rhombus tilings of an abc-hexagon, a dimer model on a cylindrical brick lattice and a growth model. The measures obtained, e.g. the Krawtchouk and Hahn ensembles, have the same structure as the eigenvalue measures in random matrix theory like GUE, which can in fact be obtained from non-intersecting Brownian motions. The derivations of the measures are based on the Karlin-McGregor or Lindström-Gessel-Viennot method. We use the measure to show some asymptotic results for the mode…
At the free-fermion point, the six-vertex model with domain wall boundary conditions (DWBC) can be related to the Aztec diamond, a domino tiling problem. We study the mapping on the level of complete statistics for general domains and boundary conditions. This is obtained by associating to both models a set of non-intersecting lines in the Lindstroem-Gessel-Viennot (LGV) scheme. One of the consequence for DWBC is that the boundaries of the ordered phases are described by the Airy process in the thermodynamic limit.
We consider Kasteleyn and Kasteleyn-Percus matrices, which arise in enumerating matchings of planar graphs, up to matrix operations on their rows and columns. If such a matrix is defined over a principal ideal domain, this is equivalent to considering its Smith normal form or its cokernel. Many variations of the enumeration methods result in equivalent matrices. In particular, Gessel-Viennot matrices are equivalent to Kasteleyn-Percus matrices. We apply these ideas to plane partitions and related planar of tilings. We list a number of conjectures, supported by experiments in Maple, about the f…
Recently, Colomo and Sportiello introduced a powerful method, known as the \emph{Tangent Method}, for computing the arctic curve in statistical models which have a (non- or weakly-) intersecting lattice path formulation. We apply the Tangent Method to compute arctic curves in various models: the domino tiling of the Aztec diamond for which we recover the celebrated arctic circle; a model of Dyck paths equivalent to the rhombus tiling of a half-hexagon for which we find an arctic half-ellipse; another rhombus tiling model with an arctic parabola; the vertically symmetric alternating sign matric…
