Tau-function on Hurwitz spaces

Single Hurwitz numbers enumerate branched covers of the Riemann sphere with specified genus, prescribed ramification over infinity, and simple branching elsewhere. They exhibit a remarkably rich structure. In particular, they arise as intersection numbers on moduli spaces of curves and are governed by the topological recursion of Chekhov, Eynard and Orantin. Double Hurwitz numbers are defined analogously, but with prescribed ramification over both zero and infinity. Goulden, ...

Branched covers between Riemann surfaces are associated with certain combinatorial data, and Hurwitz existence problem asks whether given data satisfying those combinatorial constraints can be realized by some branched cover. We connect recent development in spherical conic metrics to this old problem, and give a new method of finding exceptional (unrealizable) branching data. As an application, we find new infinite sets of exceptional branched cover data on the Riemann spher...

The Hurwitz space is a compactification of the space of rational functions of a given degree. The Lyashko-Looijenga map assigns to a rational function the set of its critical values. It is known that the number of ramified coverings of CP^1 by CP^1 with prescribed ramification points and ramification types is related to the degree of the Lyashko--Looijenga map on various strata of the Hurwitz space. Here we explain how the degree of the Lyashko-Looijenga map is related to the...

Main Theorem: Spaces of r-branch point 3-cycle covers, degree n or Galois of degree n!/2 have one (resp. two) component(s) if r=n-1 (resp. r\ge n). Improves Fried-Serre on deciding when sphere covers with odd-order branching lift to unramified Spin covers. We produce Hurwitz-Torelli automorphic functions on Hurwitz spaces, and draw Inverse Galois conclusions. Example: Absolute spaces of 3-cycle covers with +1 (resp. -1) lift invariant carry canonical even (resp. odd) theta fu...

We study and compute an infinite family of Hurwitz spaces parameterizing covers of P_C branched at four points and deduce explicit regular S_n and A_n-extensions over Q(T) with totally real fibers.

In this work we find the isomonodromic (Jimbo-Miwa) tau-function corresponding to Frobenius manifold structures on Hurwitz spaces. We discuss several applications of this result. First, we get an explicit expression for the G-function (solution of Getzler's equation) of the Hurwitz Frobenius manifolds. Second, in terms of this tau-function we compute the genus one correction to the free energy of hermitian two-matrix model. Third, we find the Jimbo-Miwa tau-function of an arb...

We provide a direct correspondence between the $b$-Hurwitz numbers with $b=1$ from \cite{ChapuyDolega}, and twisted Hurwtiz numbers from \cite{TwistedHurwitz}. This provides a description of real coverings of the sphere with ramification on the real line in terms of monodromy.

In this note we provide a new partial solution to the Hurwitz existence problem for surface branched covers. Namely, we consider candidate branch data with base surface the sphere and one partition of the degree having length two, and we fully determine which of them are realizable and which are exceptional. The case where the covering surface is also the sphere was solved somewhat recently by Pakovich, and we deal here with the case of positive genus. We show that the only o...

We study the moduli space of meromorphic 1-forms on complex algebraic curves having at most simple poles with fixed nonzero residues. We interpret the Bergman tau function on this moduli space as a section of a line bundle and study its asymptotic behavior near the boundary and the locus of forms with non-simple zeros. As an application, we decompose the projection of this locus to the moduli space of curves into a linear combination of standard generators of the rational Pic...

We investigate the universal Jacobian of degree n line bundles over the Hurwitz stack of double covers of P^1 by a curve of genus g. Our main results are: the construction of a smooth, irreducible, universally closed (but not separated) moduli compactification of this universal Jacobian; a description of the global geometry and moduli properties of these stacks; and a computation of the Picard groups of these stacks in the cases when n-g is even. An important ingredient of ou...