The six-vertex model on random planar maps revisited (Q2689011)

This paper determines the generating function \(Q(t,\gamma)\) that counts 4-regular planar maps which are equipped with an Eulerian orientation. The parameter \(t\) counts vertices whereas \(\gamma\) counts alternating vertices. The latter are the vertices where the two outgoing edges in the Eulerian orientation are opposite each other. The study of the combinatorics of such maps is motivated by mathematical physics and, in particular, by a model known as the six-vertex model on dynamical random lattices. This has been studied with methods of mathematical physics, but this paper follows a combinatorial approach and corrects one of the predictions that were made with the use of non-rigorous methods. The main theorem gives an explicit expression for the generating function \(Q(x,\gamma)\) which uses the Jacobi theta function. A key trick to the derivation of the generating function is establishing a relation between these maps and the family of 3-regular maps with a partial Eulerian orientation, in which each edge has one incoming and one outgoing edge (whereas the other is undirected).