From Dominoes to Hexagons

Abstract

There is a natural generalization of domino tilings to tilings of a polygon by hexagons, or, dually, configurations of oriented curves that meet in triples. We show exactly when two such tilings can be connected by a series of moves analogous to the domino flip move. The triple diagrams that result have connections to Legendrian knots, cluster algebras, and planar algebras.