Dimers and Amoebae

In this paper we develop a general approach to dimer models analogous to Krichever's scheme in the theory of integrable systems. We start with a Riemann surface and the simplest generic meromorphic functions on it and demonstrate how to obtain integrable dimer models. These are dimer models on doubly periodic bipartite graphs with quasi-periodic positive weights. Dimer models with periodic weights and Harnack curves are recovered as a special case. This generalization from Ha...

The purpose of the present work is to provide a detailed asymptotic analysis of the $k\times\ell$ doubly periodic Aztec diamond dimer model of growing size for any $k$ and $\ell$ and under mild conditions on the edge weights. We explicitly describe the limit shape and the 'arctic' curves that separate different phases, as well as prove the convergence of local fluctuations to the appropriate translation-invariant Gibbs measures away from the arctic curves. We also obtain a ho...

This paper completes the comprehensive study of the dimer model on infinite minimal graphs with Fock's weights [arXiv:1503.00289] initiated in [arXiv:2007.14699]: the latter article dealt with the elliptic case, i.e., models whose associated spectral curve is of genus one, while the present work applies to models of arbitrary genus. This provides a far-reaching extension of the genus zero results of [arXiv:math-ph/0202018, arXiv:math/0311062], from isoradial graphs with criti...

In this paper we study the connection between dimers and Harnack curves discovered in math-ph/0311005. We prove that every Harnack curve arises as a spectral curve of some dimer model. We also prove that the space of Harnack curve of given degree is homeomorphic to a closed octant and that the areas of the amoeba holes and the distances between the amoeba tentacles give these global coordinates. We characterize Harnack curves of genus zero as spectral curves of isoradial dime...

These are lecture notes for lectures at the Park City Math Institute, summer 2007. We cover aspects of the dimer model on planar, periodic bipartite graphs, including local statistics, limit shapes and fluctuations.

We present a geometrical approach for studying dimers. We introduce a connection for dimer problems on bipartite and non-bipartite graphs. In the bipartite case the connection is flat but has non-trivial ${\bf Z}_2$ holonomy round certain curves. This holonomy has the universality property that it does not change as the number of vertices in the fundamental domain of the graph is increased. It is argued that the K-theory of the torus, with or without punctures, is the appropr...

This paper provides a comprehensive study of the dimer model on infinite minimal graphs with Fock's elliptic weights [arXiv:1503.00289]. Specific instances of such models were studied in [arXiv:052711, arXiv:1612.09082, arXiv1801.00207]; we now handle the general genus 1 case, thus proving a non-trivial extension of the genus 0 results of [arXiv:math-ph/0202018, arXiv:math/0311062] on isoradial critical models. We give an explicit local expression for a two-parameter family o...

We associate a noncommutative curve to a periodic, bipartite, planar dimer model with polygonal boundary. It determines the inverse Kasteleyn matrix and hence all correlations. It may be seen as a quantization of the limit shape construction of Kenyon and the author in arXiv:math-ph/0507007. We also discuss various directions in which this correspondence may be generalized.

We present a general approach for the study of dimer model limit shape problems via variational and integrable systems techniques. In particular we deduce the limit shape of the Aztec diamond and the hexagon for quasi-periodic weights through purely variational techniques. Putting an M-curve at the center of the construction allows one to define weights and algebro-geometric structures describing the behavior of the corresponding dimer model. We extend the quasi-periodic se...

This is an expanded version of a three-hour minicourse given at the winterschool Winterbraids IV held in Dijon in February 2014. The aim of these lectures was to present some aspects of the dimer model to a geometrically minded audience. We spoke neither of braids nor of knots, but tried to show how several geometrical tools that we know and love (e.g. (co)homology, spin structures, real algebraic curves) can be applied to very natural problems in combinatorics and statistica...