Domino Tilings, Domino Shuffling, and the Nabla Operator

Abstract

We study domino tilings of certain regions $R_{\lambda }$, indexed by partitions $\lambda$, weighted according to generalized area and dinv statistics. These statistics arise from the $q,t$-Catalan combinatorics and Macdonald polynomials. We present a formula for the generating polynomial of these domino tilings in terms of the Bergeron--Garsia nabla operator. When $\lambda =(n^n)$ is a square shape, domino tilings of $R_{\lambda }$ are equivalent to those of the Aztec diamond of order $n$. In this case, we give a new product formula for the resulting polynomials by domino shuffling and its connection with alternating sign matrices. In particular, we obtain a combinatorial proof of the joint symmetry of the generalized area and dinv statistics.

26 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables. Comments are welcome