Another dual of MacMahon's theorem on plane partitions

Mihai Ciucu

Published 2015-09-21Version 1

In this paper we introduce a counterpart structure to the shamrocks studied in the paper "A dual of Macmahon's theorem on plane partitions" by M. Ciucu and C. Krattenthaler (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, vol. 110 (2013), 4518-4523), which, just like the latter, can be included at the center of a lattice hexagon on the triangular lattice so that the region obtained from the hexagon by removing it has its number of lozenge tilings given by a simple product formula. The new structure, called a fern, consists of an arbitrary number of equilateral triangles of alternating orientations lined up along a lattice line. The shamrock and the fern seem to be the only structures with this property. It would be interesting to understand why these are the only two such structures.