How quickly can we sample a uniform domino tiling of the 2L x 2L square via Glauber dynamics?

TThe prototypical problem we study here is the following. Given a $2L\times 2L$ square, there are approximately $\exp(4KL^2/\pi )$ ways to tile it with dominos, i.e. with horizontal or vertical $2\times 1$ rectangles, where $K\approx 0.916$ is Catalan's constant [Kasteleyn '61, Temperley-Fisher '61]. A conceptually simple (even if computationally not the most efficient) way of sampling uniformly one among so many tilings is to introduce a Markov Chain algorithm (Glauber dynamics) where, with rate $1$, two adjacent horizontal dominos are flipped to vertical dominos, or vice-versa. The unique invariant measure is the uniform one and a classical question [Wilson 2004,Luby-Randall-Sinclair 2001] is to estimate the time $T_{mix}$ it takes to approach equilibrium (i.e. the running time of the algorithm). In [Luby-Randall-Sinclair 2001, Randall-Tetali 2000], fast mixin was proven: $T_{mix}=O(L^C)$ for some finite $C$. Here, we go much beyond and show that $c L^2\le T_{mix}\le L^{2+o(1)}$. Our result applies to rather general domain shapes (not just the $2L\times 2L$ square), provided that the typical height function associated to the tiling is macroscopically planar in the large $L$ limit, under the uniform measure (this is the case for instance for the Temperley-type boundary conditions considered in [Kenyon 2000]). Also, our method extends to some other types of tilings of the plane, for instance the tilings associated to dimer coverings of the hexagon or square-hexagon lattices.Comment: to appear on PTRF; 42 pages, 9 figures; v2: typos corrected, references adde

The mixing time of the lozenge tiling Glauber dynamics

The broad motivation of this work is a rigorous understanding of reversible, local Markov dynamics of interfaces, and in particular their speed of convergence to equilibrium, measured via the mixing time $T_{mix}$. In the $(d+1)$-dimensional setting, $d\ge2$, this is to a large extent mathematically unexplored territory, especially for discrete interfaces. On the other hand, on the basis of a mean-curvature motion heuristics and simulations, one expects convergence to equilibrium to occur on time-scales of order $\approx \delta^{-2}$ in any dimension, with $\delta\to0$ the lattice mesh. We study the single-flip Glauber dynamics for lozenge tilings of a finite domain of the plane, viewed as $(2+1)$-dimensional surfaces. The stationary measure is the uniform measure on admissible tilings. At equilibrium, by the limit shape theorem, the height function concentrates as $\delta\to0$ around a deterministic profile $\phi$, the unique minimizer of a surface tension functional. Despite some partial mathematical results, the conjecture $T_{mix}=\delta^{-2+o(1)}$ has been proven, so far, only in the situation where $\phi$ is an affine function. In this work, we prove the conjecture under the sole assumption that the limit shape $\phi$ contains no frozen regions (facets).Comment: 31 pages, 2 figure

DIMERS AND IMAGINARY GEOMETRY

We present a general result which shows that the winding of the branches in a uniform spanning tree on a planar graph converge in the limit of fine mesh size to a Gaussian free field. The result holds true assuming only convergence of simple random walk to Brownian motion and a Russo-Seymour-Welsh type crossing estimate. As an application, we prove universality of the fluctuations of the height function associated to the dimer model, in several situations. This includes the case of lozenge tilings with boundary conditions lying in a plane, and Temperleyan domains in isoradial graphs (recovering a recent result of Li). The robustness of our approach, which is a key novelty of this paper, comes from the fact that the exactly solvable nature of the model plays only a minor role in the analysis. Instead, we rely on a connection to imaginary geometry, where the limit of a uniform spanning tree is viewed as a set of flow lines associated to a Gaussian free field

DIMERS AND IMAGINARY GEOMETRY

We present a general result which shows that the winding of the branches in a uniform spanning tree on a planar graph converge in the limit of fine mesh size to a Gaussian free field. The result holds true assuming only convergence of simple random walk to Brownian motion and a Russo-Seymour-Welsh type crossing estimate. As an application, we prove universality of the fluctuations of the height function associated to the dimer model, in several situations. This includes the case of lozenge tilings with boundary conditions lying in a plane, and Temperleyan domains in isoradial graphs (recovering a recent result of Li). The robustness of our approach, which is a key novelty of this paper, comes from the fact that the exactly solvable nature of the model plays only a minor role in the analysis. Instead, we rely on a connection to imaginary geometry, where the limit of a uniform spanning tree is viewed as a set of flow lines associated to a Gaussian free field

The dimer model on Riemann surfaces, I

We develop a framework to study the dimer model on Temperleyan graphs embedded on a Riemann surface with finitely many holes and handles. We extend Temperley's bijection to this setting and show that the dimer model can be understood in terms of an object which we call Temperleyan forests. Extending our earlier work to the setup of Riemann surfaces, we show that if the Temperleyan forest has a scaling limit then the fluctuations of the height one-form of the dimer model also converge. Furthermore, if the Riemann surface is either a torus or an annulus, we show that Temperleyan forests reduce to cycle-rooted spanning forests and show convergence of the latter to a conformally invariant, universal scaling limit. This generalises a result of Kassel--Kenyon. As a consequence, the dimer height one-form fluctuations also converge on these surfaces, and the limit is conformally invariant. Combining our results with those of Dub\'edat, this implies that the height one-form on the torus converges to the compactified Gaussian free field, thereby settling a question in \cite{DubedatGheissari}. This is the first part in a series of works on the scaling limit of the dimer model on general Riemann surfaces.Comment: 75 page

Critical Exponents on Fortuin-Kasteleyn Weighted Planar Maps

In this paper we consider random planar maps weighted by the self-dual Fortuin--Kasteleyn model with parameter $q \in (0,4)$. Using a bijection due to Sheffield and a connection to planar Brownian motion in a cone we obtain rigorously the value of the critical exponent associated with the length of cluster interfaces, which is shown to be $$\frac{4}{\pi} \arccos \left( \frac{\sqrt{2 - \sqrt{q}}}{2} \right)=\frac{\kappa'}{8}.$$ where $\kappa'$ is the SLE parameter associated with this model. We also derive the exponent corresponding to the area enclosed by a loop which is shown to be 1 for all values of $q \in (0,4)$. Applying the KPZ formula we find that this value is consistent with the dimension of SLE curves and SLE duality. Communicated by H.-T. YauNathanaël Berestycki: Supported in part by EPSRC grants EP/L018896/1 and EP/I03372X/1. Benoît Laslier: Supported in part by EPSRC grant EP/I03372X/1. Gourab Ray: Supported in part by EPSRC grant EP/I03372X/1