English

On metric graphs with prescribed gonality

Combinatorics 2017-10-10 v2 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

We prove that in the moduli space of genus-g metric graphs the locus of graphs with gonality at most d has the classical dimension min{3g-3,2g+2d-5}. This follows from a careful parameter count to establish the upper bound and a construction of sufficiently many graphs with gonality at most d to establish the lower bound. Here, gonality is the minimal degree of a non-degenerate harmonic map to a tree that satisfies the Riemann-Hurwitz condition everywhere. Along the way, we establish a convenient combinatorial datum capturing such harmonic maps to trees.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.05542,
  title  = {On metric graphs with prescribed gonality},
  author = {Filip Cools and Jan Draisma},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.05542},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

18 pages, 10 figures, corrected an erroneous lemma in previous version, many further improvements suggested by referees

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:52:29.065Z