Topological classification of trigonometric polynomials and combinatorics of graphs with an equal number of vertices and edges (Q679493)

With each meromorphic function (which is assumed to be -- except at critical points -- an \(m\)-to-one holomorphic mapping of a compact connected Riemann surface onto the Riemann sphere, with a total of \(n\) finite critical values), an edge labelled graph on \(m\) vertices and \(n\) edges is associated. The graph itself reflects in a natural way the ramification of the meromorphic function; the edge labelling is a 1-1 mapping from the edge set to \(\{ 1,2,\dots,n\}\). The Coxeter permutation of such a labelled graph is the permutation of its vertex set defined as the product \(\sigma_1\dots\sigma_n\) where \(\sigma_i\) is the transposition which permutes the endvertices of the edge labelled \(i\). The author surveys some of the connections between meromorphic functions, their edge labelled graphs, and the corresponding Riemann surfaces. Laurent polynomials are then studied in detail. Typical results: The manifold of classes of topological equivalence of Laurent polynomials with poles of order \(p\) and \(q\) and with \(p+q\) distinct critical values is naturally covered by the manifolds of bipolynomials of bidegree \((p,q)\) with \(p+q\) distinct critical values and naturally covers the complement of the swallow tail in the space \(C^{p+q-1}\) with multiplicity \(M(p,q)=p^pq^q(p+q-1)!/p!q!\). The same manifold is an Eilenberg-MacLane space \(K(\pi,1)\) for the corresponding subgroup of index \(M(p,q)\) in the braid group on \(n\) strings. Results of the above type have implications in combinatorics and graph theory, because the topological classification of the above mappings is equivalent to the enumeration of the connected graphs on \(n\) vertices with \(n\) labelled edges (i.e., edge labelled unicyclic graphs of order \(n\)). For example, it follows that the number of edge labelled \((n,n)\) graphs whose Coxeter permutation consists of two cycles of lengths \(p\) and \(q\) is equal to \(M(p,q)\).