Abstract
In this article we use techniques from algebraic geometry and homological algebra, together with ideas from string theory to construct a class of 3-dimensional Calabi-Yau algebras. The Calabi-Yau property appears throughout geometry and string theory and is increasingly being studied in algebra. We further show that the algebras constructed are examples of non-commutative crepant resolutions (NCCRs), in the sense of Van den Bergh, of Gorenstein affine toric threefolds. Dimer models, first studied in theoretical physics, give a way of writing down a class of non-commutative algebras, as the path algebra of a quiver with relations obtained from a ‘superpotential’. Some examples are Calabi-Yau and some are not. We consider two types of ‘consistency’ conditions on dimer models, and show that a ‘geometrically consistent’ dimer model is ‘algebraically consistent’. We prove that the algebras obtained from algebraically consistent dimer models are 3-dimensional Calabi-Yau algebras. This is the key step which allows us to prove that these algebras are NCCRs of the Gorenstein affine toric threefolds associated to the dimer models.

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