Degrees of cohomology classes of multisingularities in Hurwitz spaces of rational functions (Q2278731)

Hurwitz spaces are spaces of meromorphic functions with prescribed orders of poles on curves of a given genus. The aim of this paper is to derive new formulas for the degrees of the strata of Hurwitz spaces of genus \(0\) corresponding to functions that have two degenerate critical values with prescribed partitions of multiplicities of the preimages. More precisely, one of the critical values has an arbitrary multiplicity of the preimages, while the other is the simplest degenerate critical value. The paper is divided into two parts and is organized as follows: The first part is an introduction to all the necessary concepts, gives a description of Hurwitz spaces and states the main results. In the second part, the author presents the proofs of all intermediate assertions and the main theorem obtained in this paper. Finally, at the end of the paper the author gives a proof of Kazarian's identities.