Branched covers of the sphere and the prime-degree conjecture (Q1953882)

Given a branched cover \(\widetilde{\Sigma} \to \Sigma\) of degree \(d\) between closed, connected, and orientable surfaces, the local degrees over the branch points give a finite set of non-trivial partitions of \(d\), which satisfy the Riemann-Hurwitz formula. The Hurwitz's realization problem asks if such a set of partitions does actually come from a branched covering between surfaces. The answer is known to be always positive when \(\Sigma \ncong S^2\), while it can be negative for \(\Sigma \cong S^2\). The latter case is still open in general and the positive answer is conjectured for \(d\) a prime number. In the paper under review the authors continue the study of the realization problem for \(\Sigma \cong S^2\) started in [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 361, No. 11, 5885--5920 (2009; Zbl 1181.57002)] and provide further evidence for the prime-degree conjecture. Namely, they consider the case when in the corresponding orbifold covering \(\widetilde{X} \to X\) the orbifold \(X\) is hyperbolic and rigid and the orbifold \(\widetilde{X}\) has a 2-dimensional Teichmüller space.