Counting distinct dimer hex tilings

TL;DR

This paper reviews the combinatorial problem of counting distinct tilings of hexagons with specific diamond shapes, connecting it to known formulas, symmetries, and sequence data, providing a comprehensive overview.

Contribution

It consolidates known results and formulas for counting hexagon tilings with specific symmetries, clarifying the existing combinatorial data and conjectures.

Findings

Formulas for counting tilings are expressed as factorial products.

Confirmed the sequence data for small side-lengths in OEIS.

Connected tiling counts to plane partitions and thermodynamic models.

Abstract

The combinatorics of tilings of a hexagon of integer side-length $n$ by 120 degree - 60 degree diamonds of side-length 1 has a long history, both directly (as a problem of interest in thermodynamic models) and indirectly (through the equivalence to plane partitions). Formulae as products of factorials have been conjectured and, one by one, proven for the number of such tilings under each of the symmetries of the hexagon. However, when this note was written the entry for the number of distinct such tilings in the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) consisted of little more than a table for $0 \le n \le 4$ and a brief discussion of those values. The aim of this note is to pull together the relevant facts.