Normalteiler vom Geschlecht eins in freien Produkten endlicher zyklischer Gruppen. (Normal subgroups of genus one in free products of finite cyclic groups) (Q1091471)

For covering space theory, we are often interested in the subgroups of manifold or orbifold fundamental groups which are both normal and have finite index. The most computable cases involve surfaces and much work has been done by Edmonds, Kulkarni and others using the Riemann-Hurwitz relation to study the realizability of coverings of specific types. The authors extend work of \textit{M. Newman} [Am. J. Math. 86, 17-24 (1964; Zbl 0122.03703)]. He computed the genus one normal subgroups of the classical modular group \(Z_ 2*Z_ 3\). The authors characterize the genus one normal subgroups of the free product of finitely many finite cyclic groups. As example they show that the Hecke group \(G=G(\sqrt{2})\simeq Z_ 2*Z_ 4\) has the following property: If \(b_ 1(n)\) is the number of normal subgroups of G of index 4n and genus one then \(b_ 1(n)=C/4\) where C is the cardinality of the set of integral lattice points (x,y) in the plane with the property that \(x^ 2+y^ 2=n\).