Domino tilings and Aztec stars (Q2500796)

An \(n\)-aztec star is the diamond-shaped part of an infinite chess board which can be reached from a \(2\times 2\) central region by at most \(n-1\) horizontal or vertical steps. The authors investigate the number AZ\((n)\) of different tilings of an \(n\)-aztec star by dominoes. \textit{N. Elkies} et al. [J. Algebr. Comb. 1, 219--234 (1992; Zbl 0788.05017)] have shown that \(\text{AZ}(n)=2^{n(n+1)/2}\) by four different proofs. The object of the paper under review is one of these which uses only elementary means, but is based on a theorem which expresses a property of the process of ``domino shuffling'' the proof of which is considered to be vague. The authors investigate this process in detail and give a (new) proof of the theorem.