Proof of Blum's conjecture on hexagonal dungeons

Matt Blum conjectured that the number of tilings of the Hexagonal Dungeon of sides $a,\ 2a,\ b,\ a,\ 2a,\ b$ (where $b\geq 2a$) is $13^{2a^2}14^{\lfloor\frac{a^2}{2}\rfloor}$ (J. Propp, New Perspectives in Geometric Combinatorics, Cambridge University Press, 1999). In this paper we present a proof for this conjecture using Kuo's Graphical Condensation Theorem (E. Kuo, Applications of Graphical Condensation for Enumerating Matchings and Tilings, Theoretical Computer Science, 2004).Comment: 30 page

Applications of Graphical Condensation for Enumerating Matchings and Tilings

A technique called graphical condensation is used to prove various combinatorial identities among numbers of (perfect) matchings of planar bipartite graphs and tilings of regions. Graphical condensation involves superimposing matchings of a graph onto matchings of a smaller subgraph, and then re-partitioning the united matching (actually a multigraph) into matchings of two other subgraphs, in one of two possible ways. This technique can be used to enumerate perfect matchings of a wide variety of bipartite planar graphs. Applications include domino tilings of Aztec diamonds and rectangles, diabolo tilings of fortresses, plane partitions, and transpose complement plane partitions.Comment: 25 pages; 21 figures Corrected typos; Updated references; Some text revised, but content essentially the sam

Graphical condensation of plane graphs: a combinatorial approach

The method of graphical vertex-condensation for enumerating perfect matchings of plane bipartite graph was found by Propp (Theoret. Comput. Sci. 303(2003), 267-301), and was generalized by Kuo (Theoret. Comput. Sci. 319 (2004), 29-57) and Yan and Zhang (J. Combin. Theory Ser. A, 110(2005), 113-125). In this paper, by a purely combinatorial method some explicit identities on graphical vertex-condensation for enumerating perfect matchings of plane graphs (which do not need to be bipartite) are obtained. As applications of our results, some results on graphical edge-condensation for enumerating perfect matchings are proved, and we count the sum of weights of perfect matchings of weighted Aztec diamond.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. accepted by Theoretial Computer Scienc

A Generalization of Aztec Diamond Theorem, Part II

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.Comment: 11 pages and 7 figure