Spin Hurwitz numbers and topological quantum field theory
Abstract
Spin Hurwitz numbers count ramified covers of a spin surface, weighted by the size of their automorphism group (like ordinary Hurwitz numbers), but signed according to the parity of the covering surface. These numbers were first defined by Eskin-Okounkov-Pandharipande in order to study the moduli of holomorphic differentials on a Riemann surface. They have also been related to Gromov-Witten invariants of of complex 2-folds by work of Lee-Parker and Maulik-Pandharipande. In this paper, we construct a (spin) TQFT which computes these numbers, and deduce a formula for any genus in terms of the combinatorics of the Sergeev algebra, generalizing the formula of Eskin-Okounkov-Pandharipande. During the construction, we describe a procedure for averaging any TQFT over finite covering spaces based on the finite path integrals of Freed-Hopkins-Lurie-Teleman.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1201.1273,
title = {Spin Hurwitz numbers and topological quantum field theory},
author = {Sam Gunningham},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.1273},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
38 pages, substantially rewritten and reorganized following referees' advice. Diagrams added. The key results are unchanged