arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to James Propp.
This document is an exposition of an assortment of open problems arising from the exact enumeration of (perfect) matchings of finite graphs. Roughly half have been solved at the time of this writing; see the document "Twenty Open Problems in Enumeration of Matchings: Progress Report" (also available from this server as math.CO/9801061). NOTE: This article has now been superseded by math.CO/9904150.
This document is a brief summary of progress that has been made on the problems posed in the document "Twenty Open Problems in Enumeration of Matchings" (also available from this server as math.CO/9801060). NOTE: This article has now been superseded by math.CO/9904150.
This survey article describes a method for choosing uniformly at random from any finite set whose objects can be viewed as constituting a distributive lattice. The method is based on ideas of the author and David Wilson for using ``coupling from the past'' to remove initialization bias from Monte Carlo randomization. The article describes several applications to specific kinds of combinatorial objects such as tilings, constrained lattice paths, and alternating-sign matrices.
We discuss some properties of a class of cellular automata sometimes called a "generalized ant". This system is perhaps most easily understood by thinking of an ant which moves about a lattice in the plane. At each vertex (or "cell"), the ant turns right or left, depending on the the state of the cell, and then changes the state of the cell according to certain prescribed rule strings. (This system has been the subject of several Mathematical Entertainments columns in the Mathematical Intelligencer; this article will be a future such column). At various times, the distributions of the states of the cells for certain ants is bilaterally symmetric; we categorize a class of ants for which this is the case and give a proof using Truchet tiles.
We introduce a family of planar regions, called Aztec diamonds, and study the ways in which these regions can be tiled by dominoes. Our main result is a generating function that not only gives the number of domino tilings of the Aztec diamond of order $n$ but also provides information about the orientation of the dominoes (vertical versus horizontal) and the accessibility of one tiling from another by means of local modifications. Several proofs of the formula are given. The problem turns out to have connections with the alternating sign matrices of Mills, Robbins, and Rumsey, as well as the square ice model studied by Lieb.