Lattice animals and heaps of dimers (Q1850063)

The paper derives generating functions for various types of directed lattice animals. This is accomplished by setting up bijections between directed lattice animals and heaps of dimers. Two types of heaps are defined, which are also sets of ``pyramids'' and can be exactly enumerated. The relations between directed animals and pyramids of dimers are obtained by drawing diagrams and corresponding relations between generating functions are obtained. The generating function for directed animals is algebraic and has been known since 1982. Two natural classes of heaps of dimers are defined. One class is found to have algebraic generating functions, the other has generating functions defined by functional equations. Some of these are solved leading to transcendental generating functions.