Rhombus tilings of a hexagon with three fixed border tiles (Q1818219)

The author computes the number of rhombus tilings of a hexagon with side lengths \(a,b,c,a,b,c\) which contain three fixed tiles touching the border of the hexagon. This is accomplished by translating the tilings into nonintersecting lattice paths, thus obtaining, by means of the Lindström-Gessel-Viennot theorem, a determinant for the number of tilings, and by finally evaluating the determinant. The last step is done inductively, making use of the condensation rule that is often attributed to Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), was probably first discovered by Desnanot, and is in fact a special case of a determinant identity due to Jacobi. The special case \(a=c=2n\), \(b=2n+3\) of the enumeration result proves a conjecture of \textit{James Propp} [Enumeration of matchings: Problems and progress, in: New perspectives in algebraic combinatorics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Math. Sci. Res. Inst. Publ. 38, 255-291 (1999; Zbl 0937.05065)].