Ribbon graphs, quadratic differentials on Riemann surfaces, and algebraic curves defined over \(\overline{\mathbb Q}\) (Q1585450)

This paper presents a highly detailed and highly formalistic exposition of relationships between certain concepts: ribbon graphs, certain quadratic differentials on (compact) Riemann surfaces, Belyĭ maps and child's drawings (dessins d'enfants of Grothendieck). The edge refinement of a graph is obtained by inserting a new vertex on each edge obtaining from each edge two ``half-edges''. A ribbon graph is a graph with a cyclic ordering on the set of half-edges incident to each vertex of \(T\). The authors also consider metric ribbon graphs where a positive real number is assigned to each edge. On a Riemann surface with a finite number of distinguished points there are meromorphic quadratic differentials with double poles at these points all of whose trajectory structure domains are circle domains with these points as centres. For some obscure reason the authors call such quadratic differentials Strebel differentials (obscure because the reviewer [Ann. Math. (2) 66, 440--453 (1957; Zbl 0082.06301)] considered such quadratic differentials much earlier than Strebel did). A Belyĭ map is a holomorphic mapping of a Riemann surface onto \(P'\) branched only over \(0\), \(1\), \(\infty\). \textit{G. V. Belyĭ}'s result [Math. USSR, Izv. 14, 247--256 (1980); translation from Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Mat. 43, 267--276 (1979; Zbl 0409.12012)] is that a Riemann surface is equivalent to an algebraic curve defined over the algebraic numbers if and only if it admits a Belyĭ map. The authors use ``Strebel'' differentials to construct canonical coordinate systems on a Riemann surface and study the relationship between metric ribbon graphs and moduli of Riemann surfaces. Also, they give an explicit formula for the Belyĭ map corresponding to an arbitrary ribbon graph. Finally, they show that there is a \((1,1)\) correspondence between the sets of isomorphism classes of ribbon graphs, child's drawings and Belyĭ maps.