On realizability of branched coverings of the sphere (Q5951981)

A rational branched data \(D\) of degree \(d\) is a set of integers \(d_{ij}>0\), \(j=1,\ldots,k_i\), \(i=1,\ldots,n\) satisfying the following conditions: (i) \(\forall i\) \(d_{ij}>1\) for some \(j\), (ii) \(\forall i\) \(\sum_{j=1}^{k_i}d_{ij}=d\), (iii) \(\sum_{i=1}^n \nu_i(D)=2d-2\). Here \(n=n(D)\), \(\nu_i(D)=\sum_{j=1}^{k_i}(d_{ij}-1)\), \(i=1,\ldots,n\). The classical Hurwitz problem is to determine if a given rational branched data \(D\) of degree \(d\) is realizable as the set of branched multiplicities for some \(d\)-sheeted branched covering \(f: S^2\rightarrow S^2\) with branchpoints over \(n\) given points of the sphere \(S^2\). The problem and its generalizations are investigated by A. Hurwitz, A. L. Edmonds, R. S. Kulkarni, R. E. Stong, R. Thom, G. M. Gersten, and others. The author gives some new sufficient conditions of realizability of a given data. In particular, he proved that a rational branched data is realizable provided \(n(D)\geq d\) (Theorem 12) or if for all \(i\), \(j\) the inequalities \(d_{ij}\leq 2\), \(\nu_i(D)\leq\sqrt{d/2}\) hold (Corollary 15).