On cyclic \(p\)-gonal Riemann surfaces with several \(p\)-gonal morphisms (Q5961890)

A compact Riemann surface \(X\) of genus \(g\geq 2\) is said to be \(p\)-gonal if it can be realized as a \(p\)-sheeted cover of the Riemann sphere, and such a covering is called a \(p\)-gonal morphism. If such a covering is regular, we call \(X\) a cyclic \(p\)-gonal surface. In [\textit{R. D. M. Accola}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 26, 315--322 (1970; Zbl 0212.42501)] it was shown that if \(g>(p-1)^2\), then any \(p\)-gonal morphism of a cyclic \(p\)-gonal surface is unique. In the paper under review, the authors show that there exists a uniparametric family of cyclic \(p\)-gonal surfaces of genus \((p-1)^2\) which admit two \(p\)-gonal morphisms, and hence Accola's bound is sharp. In addition, the authors show that these uniparametric families are connected and isomorphic to the Riemann sphere with three punctures. They also study the Hurwitz spaces of pairs \((X,f)\) where \(X\) is a Riemann surface and \(f\) a \(p\)-gonal morphism and show that each of these spaces are isomorphic to the Riemann sphere with four punctures. The authors derive their results using Fuchsian groups and uniformization. The paper is well written.