Reflections of regular maps and Riemann surfaces (Q1001595)

Let \(X\) be a compact Riemann surface of genus \(g\), and let \(\tau\) be an anti-conformal automorphism of \(X\), of order \(2\). By a classical theorem of \textit{A. Harnack} [Clebsch Ann. X. 189--199 (1876; JFM 08.0438.01)], the number of simple closed curves on \(X\) that are fixed by \(\tau\) (called `mirrors') is at most \(g+1\). If \(X\) admits such an automorphism \(\tau\) with exactly \(g+1\) mirrors, then \(X\) is called an \textit{\(M\)-surface}, while if the largest number of mirrors for such \(\tau\) is \(g\), then \(X\) is called an \textit{\((M\!-\!1)\)-surface}. The surface \(X\) is called \textit{Platonic} if it carries a regular map, that is, a 2-cell embedding of a connected graph such that the conformal automorphism group preserves the embedding and acts regularly on incident vertex-edge pairs. The \textit{type} of such a map is \(\{m,n\}\), where \(m\) is the valency of each vertex and \(m\) is the size of each face. In this paper, the authors prove that for every integer \(g > 1\), the only Platonic \(M\)-surface of genus \(g\) is the Accola-Maclachlan surface, which carries a regular map of type \(\{4,2g+2\}\) with \(8g+8\) conformal automorphisms, and the only Platonic \((M\!-\!1)\)-surface of genus \(g\) is the Wiman surface of type II, carrying a regular map of type \(\{4g,4g\}\) with conformal automorphism group \(C_{4g}\) of order \(4g\). In both cases, all such surfaces are hyperelliptic.