Tropical covers of curves and their moduli spaces

We define the tropical moduli space of covers of a tropical line in the plane as weighted abstract polyhedral complex, and the tropical branch map recording the images of the simple ramifications. Our main result is the invariance of the degree of the branch map, which enables us to give a tropical intersection-theoretic definition of tropical triple Hurwitz numbers. We show that our intersection-theoretic definition coincides with the one given by Bertrand, Brugall\'e and Mikhalkin in the article "Tropical Open Hurwitz numbers" where a Correspondence Theorem for Hurwitz numbers is proved. Thus we provide a tropical intersection-theoretic justification for the multiplicities with which a tropical cover has to be counted. Our method of proof is to establish a local duality between our tropical moduli spaces and certain moduli spaces of relative stable maps to the projective line.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure

Polynomiality, Wall Crossings and Tropical Geometry of Rational Double Hurwitz Cycles

We study rational double Hurwitz cycles, i.e. loci of marked rational stable curves admitting a map to the projective line with assigned ramification profiles over two fixed branch points. Generalizing the phenomenon observed for double Hurwitz numbers, such cycles are piecewise polynomial in the entries of the special ramification; the chambers of polynomiality and wall crossings have an explicit and "modular" description. A main goal of this paper is to simultaneously carry out this investigation for the corresponding objects in tropical geometry, underlining a precise combinatorial duality between classical and tropical Hurwitz theory

Irreducible triangulations of surfaces with boundary

A triangulation of a surface is irreducible if no edge can be contracted to produce a triangulation of the same surface. In this paper, we investigate irreducible triangulations of surfaces with boundary. We prove that the number of vertices of an irreducible triangulation of a (possibly non-orientable) surface of genus g>=0 with b>=0 boundaries is O(g+b). So far, the result was known only for surfaces without boundary (b=0). While our technique yields a worse constant in the O(.) notation, the present proof is elementary, and simpler than the previous ones in the case of surfaces without boundary

Cycle Double Covers and Semi-Kotzig Frame

Let $H$ be a cubic graph admitting a 3-edge-coloring $c: E(H)\to \mathbb Z_3$ such that the edges colored by 0 and $\mu\in\{1,2\}$ induce a Hamilton circuit of $H$ and the edges colored by 1 and 2 induce a 2-factor $F$. The graph $H$ is semi-Kotzig if switching colors of edges in any even subgraph of $F$ yields a new 3-edge-coloring of $H$ having the same property as $c$. A spanning subgraph $H$ of a cubic graph $G$ is called a {\em semi-Kotzig frame} if the contracted graph $G/H$ is even and every non-circuit component of $H$ is a subdivision of a semi-Kotzig graph. In this paper, we show that a cubic graph $G$ has a circuit double cover if it has a semi-Kotzig frame with at most one non-circuit component. Our result generalizes some results of Goddyn (1988), and H\"{a}ggkvist and Markstr\"{o}m [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B (2006)]