Related papers: Some 4-point Hurwitz numbers in positive character…
In this paper we study the reduction of Galois covers of curves, from characteristic 0 to characteristic p. The starting point is a is a recent result of Raynaud which gives a criterion for good reduction for covers of the projective line…
We discuss two elementary constructions for covers with fixed ramification in positive characteristic. As an application, we compute the number of certain classes of covers between projective lines branched at 4 points and obtain…
We compute the stable reduction of some Galois covers of the projective line branched at three points. These covers are constructed using Hurwitz spaces parameterizing metacyclic covers. The reduction is determined by a hypergeometric…
We compute the number of (weak) equivalence classes of branched covers from a surface of genus g to the sphere, with 3 branching points, degree 2k, and local degrees over the branching points of the form (2,...,2), (2h+1,1,2,...,2),…
In this paper we study the reduction of $p$-cyclic covers of the $p$-adic line ramified at exactly four points. For $p=2$ these covers are elliptic curves and Deuring has given a criterion for when such a curve has good reduction. Here we…
We give an alternative proof of the Hurwitz existence problem for branched covers of $\mathbb{P}^1$ in the case where the number of ramification points equals the number of branch points, that is, where all the ramification profiles are of…
The distribution of degree $d$ points on curves is well understood, especially for low degrees. We refine this study to include information on the Galois group in the simplest interesting case: $d = 3$. For curves of genus at least 5, we…
We introduce stable tropical curves and use these to count covers of the $p$-adic projective line of fixed degree and ramification types by Mumford curves in terms of tropical Hurwitz numbers. Our counts depend on the branch loci of the…
Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p > 0$ and let $G$ be a finite $p$-group. The results of Harbater, Katz and Gabber associate a $G$-cover of the projective line ramified only over $\infty$ to every $k$-linear…
We study "pure-cycle" Hurwitz spaces, parametrizing covers of the projective line having only one ramified point over each branch point. We start with the case of genus-0 covers, using a combination of limit linear series theory and group…
In this paper we use admissible covers to investigate the gonality of a stable curve $C$ over $\mathbb{C}$. If $C$ is irreducible, we compare its gonality to that of its normalization. If $C$ is reducible, we compare its gonality to that of…
We continue our computation, using a combinatorial method based on Gronthendieck's dessins d'enfant, of the number of (weak) equivalence classes of surface branched covers matching certain specific branch data. In this note we concentrate…
We study Galois covers of the projective line branched at three points with bad reduction to characteristic p, under the condition that p exactly divides the order of the Galois group. As an application of our results, we prove that the…
Hurwitz numbers count ramified genus $g$, degree $d$ coverings of the projective line with with fixed branch locus and fixed ramification data. Double Hurwitz numbers count such covers, where we fix two special profiles over $0$ and…
This survey is about Galois theory of curves in characteristic p, a topic which has inspired major research in algebraic geometry and number theory and which contains many open questions. We illustrate important phenomena which occur for…
We prove the irreducibility of the space parametrizing branched covers of a fixed Riemann surface $B$ of degree $d$, with at least 2d branch points, and with monodromy group equal to $S_d$. The result is classical for $g(B)=0$. The result…
We solve the Hurwitz monodromy problem for degree-4 covers. That is, the Hurwitz space H_{4,g} of all simply branched covers of P^1 of degree 4 and genus g is an unramified cover of the space P_{2g+6} of (2g+6)-tuples of distinct points in…
To a branched cover f between orientable surfaces one can associate a certain branch datum D(f), that encodes the combinatorics of the cover. This D(f) satisfies a compatibility condition called the Riemann-Hurwitz relation. The old but…
We characterize plane rational curves of degree four with two or more inner Galois points. A computer verifies the existence of plane rational curves of degree four with three inner Galois points. This would be the first example of a curve…
We present four new examples of plane rational curves with two Galois points in positive characteristic, and determine the number of Galois points for three of them. Our results are related to a problem on projective linear groups.