Arctic curves of the octahedron equation

We study the octahedron relation (also known as the $A_{\infty}$ $T$-system), obeyed in particular by the partition function for dimer coverings of the Aztec Diamond graph. For a suitable class of doubly periodic initial conditions, we find exact solutions with a particularly simple factorized form. For these, we show that the density function that measures the average dimer occupation of a face of the Aztec graph, obeys a system of linear recursion relations with periodic coefficients. This allows us to explore the thermodynamic limit of the corresponding dimer models and to derive exact "arctic" curves separating the various phases of the system.Comment: 39 pages, 21 figures; typos fixed, four references and an appendix adde

Arctic circles, domino tilings and square Young tableaux

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 derivation of the limiting shape of the height function of a random domino tiling of the Aztec diamond that uses the large-deviation techniques developed for the square Young tableaux problem in a previous paper by Pittel and the author. The solution of the variational problem that arises for domino tilings is almost identical to the solution for the case of square Young tableaux by Pittel and the author. The analytic techniques used to solve the variational problem provide a systematic, guess-free approach for solving problems of this type which have appeared in a number of related combinatorial probability models.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOP628 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Boundary Partitions in Trees and Dimers

Given a finite planar graph, a grove is a spanning forest in which every component tree contains one or more of a specified set of vertices (called nodes) on the outer face. For the uniform measure on groves, we compute the probabilities of the different possible node connections in a grove. These probabilities only depend on boundary measurements of the graph and not on the actual graph structure, i.e., the probabilities can be expressed as functions of the pairwise electrical resistances between the nodes, or equivalently, as functions of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator (or response matrix) on the nodes. These formulae can be likened to generalizations (for spanning forests) of Cardy's percolation crossing probabilities, and generalize Kirchhoff's formula for the electrical resistance. Remarkably, when appropriately normalized, the connection probabilities are in fact integer-coefficient polynomials in the matrix entries, where the coefficients have a natural algebraic interpretation and can be computed combinatorially. A similar phenomenon holds in the so-called double-dimer model: connection probabilities of boundary nodes are polynomial functions of certain boundary measurements, and as formal polynomials, they are specializations of the grove polynomials. Upon taking scaling limits, we show that the double-dimer connection probabilities coincide with those of the contour lines in the Gaussian free field with certain natural boundary conditions. These results have direct application to connection probabilities for multiple-strand SLE_2, SLE_8, and SLE_4.Comment: 46 pages, 12 figures. v4 has additional diagrams and other minor change

Asymptotics of multivariate sequences, part III: quadratic points

We consider a number of combinatorial problems in which rational generating functions may be obtained, whose denominators have factors with certain singularities. Specifically, there exist points near which one of the factors is asymptotic to a nondegenerate quadratic. We compute the asymptotics of the coefficients of such a generating function. The computation requires some topological deformations as well as Fourier-Laplace transforms of generalized functions. We apply the results of the theory to specific combinatorial problems, such as Aztec diamond tilings, cube groves, and multi-set permutations.Comment: substantial correction

Domino statistics of the two-periodic Aztec diamond

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 this particular model, was derived by Chhita and Young (2014). In this paper, we find a major simplification of this formula expressing entries of the inverse Kasteleyn matrix by double contour integrals which makes it possible to investigate their asymptotics. In a part of the Aztec diamond, where the asymptotic analysis is simpler, we use this formula to show that the entries of the inverse Kasteleyn matrix converge to the known entries of the full-plane inverse Kasteleyn matrices for the different phases. We also study the detailed asymptotics of the inverse Kasteleyn matrix at both the ‘liquid–solid’ and ‘liquid–gas’ boundaries, and find the extended Airy kernel in the next order asymptotics. Finally we provide a potential candidate for a combinatorial description of the liquid–gas boundary