We consider tilings of quadriculated regions by dominoes and of triangulated regions by lozenges. We present an overview of results concerning tileability, enumeration and the structure of the space of tilings.
We use the subgraph replacement method to prove a simple product formula for the tilings of an 8-vertex counterpart of Propp's quasi-hexagons (Problem 16 in New Perspectives in Geometric Combinatorics, Cambridge University Press, 1999), called quasi-octagon.
We solve and generalize an open problem posted by James Propp (Problem 16 in New Perspectives in Geometric Combinatorics, Cambridge University Press, 1999) on the number of tilings of quasi-hexagonal regions on the square lattice with every third diagonal drawn in. We also obtain a generalization of Douglas' Theorem on the number of tilings of a family of regions of the square lattice with every second diagonal drawn in.
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.
This article addresses the problem of enumerating the tilings of a plane by lozenges, under the restriction that these tilings be doubly periodic. Kasteleyn's Pfaffian method is applied to compute the generating function of those permutations. The monomials of this function represent the different types of tilings, grouping them according to the number of lozenges in each orientation. We present an alternative approach to compute these types. Finally, two additional classes of tilings are proposed as open enumeration problems.
The work of Mills, Robbins, and Rumsey on cyclically symmetric plane partitions yields a simple product formula for the number of lozenge tilings of a regular hexagon, which are invariant under roation by $120^{\circ}$. In this paper we generalize this result by enumerating the cyclically symmetric lozenge tilings of a hexagon in which four triangles have been removed in the center.
Propp conjectured that the number of lozenge tilings of a semiregular hexagon of sides $2n-1$, $2n-1$ and $2n$ which contain the central unit rhombus is precisely one third of the total number of lozenge tilings. Motivated by this, we consider the more general situation of a semiregular hexagon of sides $a$, $a$ and $b$. We prove explicit formulas for the number of lozenge tilings of these hexagons containing the central unit rhombus, and obtain Propp's conjecture as a corollary of our results.
Proctor's work on staircase plane partitions yields an enumeration of lozenge tilings of a halved hexagon on the triangular lattice. Rohatgi recently extended this tiling enumeration to a halved hexagon with a triangle removed from the boundary. In this paper we prove a generalization of the results of Proctor and Rohatgi by enumerating lozenge tilings of a halved hexagon in which an array of adjacent triangles has been removed from the boundary.
We $q$-enumerate lozenge tilings of a hexagon with three bowtie-shaped regions have been removed from three non-consecutive sides. The unweighted version of the result generalizes a problem posed by James Propp on enumeration of lozenge tilings of a hexagon of side-lengths $2n,2n+3,2n,2n+3,2n,2n+3$ (in cyclic order) with the central unit triangles on the $(2n+3)$-sides removed.
We study the weighted partition function for lozenge tilings, with weights given by multivariate rational functions originally defined by Morales, Pak and Panova (2019) in the context of the factorial Schur functions. We prove that this partition function is symmetric for large families of regions. We employ both combinatorial and algebraic proofs.
We consider incomplete tilings of the equilateral triangle of edge length n that is subdivided into n^2 regular equilateral smaller unit triangles. Pairs of the unit triangles that share a side may be converted into lozenges, leaving some subset of the unit triangles untouched. We count numerically these coverings by lozenges and unit triangles for edge lengths n <= 6: the total and the detailed refinement as a function of the number of lozenges.
In a recent paper, Lai and Rohatgi proved a "shuffling theorem" for lozenge tilings of a hexagon with "dents" (i.e., missing triangles). Here, we shall point out that this follows immediately from the enumeration of Gelfand--Tsetlin patterns with given bottom row. This observation is also contained in a recent preprint of Byun.
It has been proven that the lozenge tilings of a quartered hexagon on the triangular lattice are enumerated by a simple product formula. In this paper we give a new proof for the tiling formula by using Kuo's graphical condensation. Our result generalizes a Proctor's theorem on enumeration of plane partitions contained in a "maximal staircase".
We give a formula for the number of lozenge tilings of a hexagon on the triangular lattice with unit triangles removed from arbitrary positions along two non-adjacent, non-opposite sides. Our formula implies that for certain families of such regions, the ratios of their numbers of tilings are given by simple product formulas.
Motivated by a conjecture posed by Fulmek and Krattenthaler, we provide product formulas for the number of lozenge tilings of a semiregular hexagon containing a horizontal intrusion. As a direct corollary, we obtain a product formula for the number of boxed plane partitions with a certain restriction. We also investigate the asymptotic behavior of the ratio between the number of lozenge tilings of a semiregular hexagon containing a horizontal intrusion and that of a semiregular hexagon without an intrusion.
The enumeration of lozenge tilings of hexagons with holes has received much attention during the last three decades. One notable feature is that a lot of the recent development involved Kuo's graphical condensation. Motivated by Ciucu, Lai and Rohatgi's work on tilings of hexagons with a removed triad of bowties, in this paper, we show that the ratio of numbers of lozenge tilings of two more general regions is expressed as a simple product formula. Our proof does not involve the graphical condensation method. The proof is short and direct. We also provide a corresponding formula for cyclically…
MacMahon proved a simple product formula for the generating function of plane partitions fitting in a given box. The theorem implies a $q$-enumeration of lozenge tilings of a semi-regular hexagon on the triangular lattice. In this paper we generalize MacMahon's classical theorem by $q$-enumerating lozenge tilings of a new family of hexagons with four adjacent triangles removed from their boundary.
We prove and generalize a conjecture in arXiv:1610.0474(4) about the asymptotics of $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n!}} f^{λ/μ}$, where $f^{λ/μ}$ is the number of standard Young tableaux of skew shape $λ/μ$ which have stable limit shape under the $1/\sqrt{n}$ scaling. The proof is based on the variational principle on the partition function of certain weighted lozenge tilings.
In a recent preprint, Lai worked out the quotient of generating functions of weighted lozenge tilings of two "half hexagons with lateral dents" which differ only in width. Lai achieved this by using "graphical condensation" (i.e., application of a certain Pfaffian identity to the weighted enumeration of matchings). The purpose of this note is to exhibit how this can be done by the Lindström--Gessel--Viennot method for nonintersecting lattice paths in a quite simple way. Basically the same observation, but restricted to mere enumeration (i.e., all weights of lozenge tilings are equal to $1$), i…
Proctor proved a formula for the number of lozenge tilings of a hexagon with side-lengths $a,b,c,a,b,c$ after removing a "maximal staircase." Ciucu then presented a weighted version of Proctor's result. Here we present weighted and unweighted formulas for a similar region which has an additional unit triangle removed. We use Kuo's graphical condensation method to prove the results. By applying the factorization theorem of Ciucu, we obtain a formula for the number of lozenge tilings of a hexagon with three holes on consecutive edges.
We generalize a special case of a theorem of Proctor on the enumeration of lozenge tilings of a hexagon with a maximal staircase removed, using Kuo's graphical condensation method. Additionally, we prove a formula for a weighted version of the given region. The result also extends work of Ciucu and Fischer. By applying the factorization theorem of Ciucu, we are also able to generalize a special case of MacMahon's boxed plane partition formula.
Eisenk"olbl gave a formula for the number of lozenge tilings of a hexagon on the triangular lattice with three unit triangles removed from along alternating sides. In earlier work, the first author extended this to the situation when an arbitrary set of unit triangles is removed from along alternating sides of the hexagon. In this paper we address the general case when an arbitrary set of unit triangles is removed from along the boundary of the hexagon.
In a recent preprint, Lai showed that the quotient of generating functions of weighted lozenge tilings of two "half hexagons with lateral dents", which differ only in width, factors nicely, and the same is true for the quotient of generating functions of weighted lozenge tilings of two "quarter hexagons with lateral dents". Lai achieved this by using "graphical condensation" (i.e., application of a certain Pfaffian identity to the weighted enumeration of matchings). The purpose of this note is to exhibit how this can be done by the Lindström--Gessel--Viennot method for nonintersecting lattice …
In a recent preprint, Lai and Rohatgi compute the generating functions of lozenge tilings of "quartered hexagons with dents" by applying the method of "graphical condensation". The purpose of this note is to exhibit how (a generalization of) Theorems 2.1 and 2.2 in Lai and Rohatgi's preprint can be achieved by the Lindström--Gessel--Viennot method of non--intersecting lattice paths and a certain determinant evaluation.
Proctor's work on staircase plane partitions yields an enumeration of lozenge tilings of a halved hexagon on the triangular lattice. Rohatgi later extended this tiling enumeration to a halved hexagon with a triangle cut off from the boundary. In the previous paper, the author proved a common generalization of Proctor's and Rohatgi's results by enumerating lozenge tilings of a halved hexagon in the case an array of an arbitrary number of triangles has been removed from a non-staircase side. In this paper, we consider the other case when the array of triangles has been removed from the staircase…
We give a formula for the number of symmetric tilings of hexagons on the triangular lattice with unit triangles removed from arbitrary positions along two non-adjacent non-opposite sides. We show that for certain families of such regions, the ratios of their numbers of symmetric tilings are given by simple product formulas. We also prove that for certain weighted regions which arise when applying Ciucu's Factorization Theorem, the formulas for the weighted and unweighted counts of tilings have a simple explicit relationship.
The number of domino tilings of a region with reflective symmetry across a line is combinatorially shown to depend on the number of domino tilings of particular subregions, modulo 4. This expands upon previous congruency results for domino tilings, modulo 2, and leads to a variety of corollaries, including that the number of domino tilings of a k x 2k rectangle is congruent to 1 mod 4.
In their paper about a dual of MacMahon's classical theorem on plane partitions, Ciucu and Krattenthaler proved a closed form product formula for the tiling number of a hexagon with a "shamrock", a union of four adjacent triangles, removed in the center (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2013). Lai later presented a $q$-enumeration for lozenge tilings of a hexagon with a shamrock removed from the boundary (European J. Combin. 2017). It appears that the above are the only two positions of the shamrock hole that yield nice tiling enumerations. In this paper, we show that in the case of symmetric hexago…
We first show that the tilings of a general domain form a lattice which we then undertake to decompose and generate without any redundance. To this end, we study extensively the relatively simple case of hexagons and their deformations. We show that general domains can be broken up into hexagon-like parts. Finally we give an algorithm to generate exactly once every element in the lattice of the tilings of a general domain.
It is well-known that plane partitions, lozenge tilings of a hexagon, perfect matchings on a honeycomb graph, and families of non-intersecting lattice paths in a hexagon are all in bijection. In this work we consider regions that are more general than hexagons. They are obtained by further removing upward-pointing triangles. We call the resulting shapes triangular regions. We establish signed versions of the latter three bijections for triangular regions. We first investigate the tileability of triangular regions by lozenges. Then we use perfect matchings and families of non-intersecting latti…
In their 2002 paper, Ciucu and Krattenthaler proved several product formulas for the number of lozenge tilings of various regions obtained from a centrally symmetric hexagon on the triangular lattice by removing maximal staircase regions from two non-adjacent corners. For the case when the staircases are removed from adjacent corners of the hexagon, they presented two conjectural formulas, whose proofs, as they remarked, seemed at the time "a formidable task". In this paper we prove those two conjectures. Our proofs proceed by first generalizing the conjectures, and then proving them by induct…
Motivated by the enumeration of a class of plane partitions studied by Proctor and by considerations about symmetry classes of plane partitions, we consider the problem of enumerating lozenge tilings of a hexagon with ``maximal staircases'' removed from some of its vertices. The case of one vertex corresponds to Proctor's problem. For two vertices there are several cases to consider, and most of them lead to nice enumeration formulas. For three or more vertices there do not seem to exist nice product formulas in general, but in one special situation a lot of factorization occurs, and we pose t…
Helfgott and Gessel gave the number of domino tilings of an Aztec Rectangle with defects of size one on the boundary of one side. In this paper we extend this to the case of domino tilings of an Aztec Rectangle with defects on all boundary sides.
MacMahon's theorem on plane partitions yields a simple product formula for tiling number of a hexagon, and Cohn, Larsen and Propp's theorem provides an explicit enumeration for tilings of a dented semihexagon via semi-strict Gelfand--Tsetlin patterns. In this paper, we prove a natural hybrid of the two theorems for hexagons with an arbitrary set of unit triangles removed along a horizontal axis. In particular, we show that the `shuffling' of removed unit triangles only changes the tiling number of the region by a simple multiplicative factor. Our main result generalizes a number of known enume…
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.
We deal with unweighted and weighted enumerations of lozenge tilings of a hexagon with side lengths $a,b+m,c,a+m,b,c+m$, where an equilateral triangle of side length $m$ has been removed from the center. We give closed formulas for the plain enumeration and for a certain $(-1)$-enumeration of these lozenge tilings. In the case that $a=b=c$, we also provide closed formulas for certain weighted enumerations of those lozenge tilings that are cyclically symmetric. For $m=0$, the latter formulas specialize to statements about weighted enumerations of cyclically symmetric plane partitions. One such …
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…
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.
Ciucu showed that the number of lozenge tilings of a hexagon in which a chain of equilateral triangles of alternating orientations, called a `\emph{fern}', has been removed in the center is given by a simple product formula (Adv. Math. 2017). In this paper, we present a multi-parameter generalization of this work by giving an explicit tiling enumeration for a hexagon with three ferns removed, besides the middle fern located in the center as in Ciucu's region, we remove two additional ferns from two sides of the hexagon. Our result also implies a counterpart of MacMahon's classical formula of b…
We consider the problem of counting and classifying domino tilings of a quadriculated torus. The counting problem for rectangles was studied by Kasteleyn and we use many of his ideas. Domino tilings of planar regions can be represented by height functions; for a torus given by a lattice L, these functions exhibit arithmetic L-quasiperiodicity. The additive constants determine the flux of the tiling, which can be interpreted as a vector in the dual lattice (2L)*. We give a characterization of the actual flux values, and of how corresponding tilings behave. We also consider domino tilings of the…
We first prove that the set of domino tilings of a fixed finite figure is a distributive lattice, even in the case when the figure has holes. We then give a geometrical interpretation of the order given by this lattice, using (not necessarily local) transformations called {\em flips}. This study allows us to formulate an exhaustive generation algorithm and a uniform random sampling algorithm. We finally extend these results to other types of tilings (calisson tilings, tilings with bicolored Wang tiles).
This paper studies the dimer model on the dual graph of the square-octagon lattice, which can be viewed as the domino tilings with impurities in some sense. In particular, under a certain boundary condition, we give an exact formula representing the probability of finding an impurity at a given site in a uniformly random dimer configuration in terms of simple random walks on the square lattice.
In a region $R$ consisting of unit squares, a domino is the union of two adjacent squares and a (domino) tiling is a collection of dominoes with disjoint interior whose union is the region. The flip graph $\mathcal{T}(R)$ is defined on the set of all tilings of $R$ such that two tilings are adjacent if we change one to another by a flip (a $90^{\circ}$ rotation of a pair of side-by-side dominoes). It is well-known that $\mathcal{T}(R)$ is connected when $R$ is simply connected. By using graph theoretical approach, we show that the flip graph of $2m\times(2n+1)$ quadriculated cylinder is still …
We consider domino tilings of three-dimensional cubiculated regions. A flip is a local move: two neighboring parallel dominoes are removed and placed back in a different position. The twist is an integer associated to each tiling, which is invariant under flips. A balanced quadriculated disk $D$ is regular if whenever two tilings $t_0$ and $t_1$ of $D \times [0,N]$ have the same twist then $t_0$ and $t_1$ can be joined by a sequence of flips provided some extra vertical space is allowed. We define the domino group of a quadriculated disk and prove that $D$ is regular if and only if its domino …
We investigate tilings of cubiculated regions with two simply connected floors by 2 x 1 x 1 bricks. More precisely, we study the flip connected component for such tilings, and provide an algebraic invariant that "almost" characterizes the flip connected components of such regions, in a sense that we discuss in the paper. We also introduce a new local move, the trit, which, together with the flip, connects the space of domino tilings when the two floors are identical.
University of Nebraska – Lincoln(内布拉斯加大学林肯分校);Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Science, Ho Chi Minh City(胡志明市科技大学数学与计算机科学学院);Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City(胡志明市越南国立大学)
Consider the probability that an arbitrary chosen lozenge tiling of the hexagon with side lengths a, b, c, a, b, c contains the horizontal lozenge with lowest vertex (x,y) as if it described the distribution of mass in the plane. We compute the horizontal and the vertical moments of inertia with respect to this distribution. This solves a problem by Propp [1, Problem 7].
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…
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.
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.
We study the 2-adic behavior of the number of domino tilings of a 2n-by-2n square as nvaries. It was previously known that this number was of the form 2^n f(n)^2, where f(n) is an odd, positive integer. We show that the function f is uniformly continuous under the 2-adic metric, and thus extends to a function on all of Z. The extension satisfies the functional equation f(-1-n) = +- f(n), where +- sign is + if n is congruent to 0 or 3 modulo 4 and - otherwise.
We prove combinatorially that the parity of the number of domino tilings of a region is equal to the parity of the number of domino tilings of a particular subregion. Using this result we can resolve the holey square conjecture. We furthermore give combinatorial proofs of several other tiling parity results, including that the number of domino tilings of a particular family of rectangles is always odd.