The Topology of Tile Invariants

In this note we use techniques in the topology of 2-complexes to recast some tools that have arisen in the study of planar tiling questions. With spherical pictures we show that the tile counting group associated to a set $T$ of tiles and a set of regions tileable by $T$ is isomorphic to a quotient of the second homology group of a 2-complex built from $T$. In this topological setting we derive some well-known tile invariants, one of which we apply to the solution of a tiling question involving modified rectangles.Comment: 25 pages, 24 figure

Tilings of quadriculated annuli

Tilings of a quadriculated annulus A are counted according to volume (in the formal variable q) and flux (in p). We consider algebraic properties of the resulting generating function Phi_A(p,q). For q = -1, the non-zero roots in p must be roots of unity and for q > 0, real negative.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures; Minor changes were made to make some passages cleare

Polyomino convolutions and tiling problems

We define a convolution operation on the set of polyominoes and use it to obtain a criterion for a given polyomino not to tile the plane (rotations and translations allowed). We apply the criterion to several families of polyominoes, and show that the criterion detects some cases that are not detectable by generalized coloring arguments.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. To appear in \emph{J. of Combin. Theory Ser. A

Tilings with T and Skew Tetrominoes

We consider tiling problems in the integer lattice. Specifically, we look at a set of four T-tetrominoes and four skew tetrominoes and determine when this set can tile rectangles and modified rectangles. Local considerations and coloring arguments are the main methods used to prove the untileability of regions

Principal minors and rhombus tilings

The algebraic relations between the principal minors of an $n\times n$ matrix are somewhat mysterious, see e.g. [lin-sturmfels]. We show, however, that by adding in certain \emph{almost} principal minors, the relations are generated by a single relation, the so-called hexahedron relation, which is a composition of six cluster mutations. We give in particular a Laurent-polynomial parameterization of the space of $n\times n$ matrices, whose parameters consist of certain principal and almost principal minors. The parameters naturally live on vertices and faces of the tiles in a rhombus tiling of a convex $2n$-gon. A matrix is associated to an equivalence class of tilings, all related to each other by Yang-Baxter-like transformations. By specializing the initial data we can similarly parametrize the space of Hermitian symmetric matrices over $\mathbb R, \mathbb C$ or $\mathbb H$ the quaternions. Moreover by further specialization we can parametrize the space of \emph{positive definite} matrices over these rings

Ribbon Tilings and Multidimensional Height Functions

We fix $n$ and say a square in the two-dimensional grid indexed by $(x,y)$ has color $c$ if $x+y \equiv c \pmod{n}$. A {\it ribbon tile} of order $n$ is a connected polyomino containing exactly one square of each color. We show that the set of order-$n$ ribbon tilings of a simply connected region $R$ is in one-to-one correspondence with a set of {\it height functions} from the vertices of $R$ to $\mathbb Z^{n}$ satisfying certain difference restrictions. It is also in one-to-one correspondence with the set of acyclic orientations of a certain partially oriented graph. Using these facts, we describe a linear (in the area of $R$) algorithm for determining whether $R$ can be tiled with ribbon tiles of order $n$ and producing such a tiling when one exists. We also resolve a conjecture of Pak by showing that any pair of order-$n$ ribbon tilings of $R$ can be connected by a sequence of local replacement moves. Some of our results are generalizations of known results for order-2 ribbon tilings (a.k.a. domino tilings). We also discuss applications of multidimensional height functions to a broader class of polyomino tiling problems.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. This version has been slightly revised (new references, a new illustration, and a few cosmetic changes). To appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Societ