Elementary solution of an infinite sequence of instances of the Hurwitz problem

DOI10.4171/RLM/806MaRDI QIDQ1650244zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Tom Ferragut, Carlo Petronio

Publication date 2 July 2018

Published in Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali. Serie IX. Rendiconti Lincei. Matematica e Applicazioni (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.00305

zbMATH Keywords

Hurwitz problemsurface branched cover

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Low-dimensional topology of special (e.g., branched) coverings (57M12)

Abstract: We prove that there exists no branched cover from the torus to the sphere with degree 3h and 3 branching points in the target with local degrees (3,...,3), (3,...,3), (4,2,3,...,3) at their preimages. The result was already established by Izmestiev, Kusner, Rote, Springborn, and Sullivan, using geometric techniques, and by Corvaja and Zannier with a more algebraic approach, whereas our proof is topological and completely elementary: besides the definitions, it only uses the fact that on the torus a simple closed curve can only be trivial (in homology, or equivalently bounding a disc, or equivalently separating) or non-trivial.

Review text

This arcticle proves inexistence of a certain type of branched cover from a torus to a sphere. The result has appeared before, but this article provides a more direct geometric/topological proof. There are many nice diagrams, and hopefully the techniques could be emulated to prove inexistence of other branched covers. The article is well written and provides very explicit figures.

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(4)

• Coverings over tori and topological approach to Klein's resolvent problem
• The Hurwitz existence problem for surface branched covers
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5007639 (Why is no real title available?)
• Solution of the Hurwitz problem with a length-2 partition

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