A bijection for covered maps, or a shortcut between Harer-Zagier?s and Jackson?s formulas

We consider maps on orientable surfaces. A map is called unicellular if it has a single face. A covered map is a map (of genus g) with a marked unicellular spanning submap (which can have any genus in {0,1,…,g}). Our main result is a bijection between covered maps with n edges and genus g and pairs made of a plane tree with n edges and a unicellular bipartite map of genus g with n+1 edges. In the planar case, covered maps are maps with a marked spanning tree and our bijection specializes into a construction obtained by the first author in Bernardi (2007) [4].Covered maps can also be seen as shuffles of two unicellular maps (one representing the unicellular submap, the other representing the dual unicellular submap). Thus, our bijection gives a correspondence between shuffles of unicellular maps, and pairs made of a plane tree and a unicellular bipartite map. In terms of counting, this establishes the equivalence between a formula due to Harer and Zagier for general unicellular maps, and a formula due to Jackson for bipartite unicellular maps.We also show that the bijection of Bouttier, Di Francesco and Guitter (2004) [8] (which generalizes a previous bijection by Schaeffer, 1998 [33]) between bipartite maps and so-called well-labeled mobiles can be obtained as a special case of our bijection.     

An analogue of the Harer-Zagier formula for unicellular maps on general surfaces

A unicellular map is the embedding of a connected graph in a surface in such a way that the complement of the graph is simply connected. In a famous article, Harer and Zagier established a formula for the generating function of unicellular maps counted according to the number of vertices and edges. The keystone of their approach is a counting formula for unicellular maps on orientable surfaces with n edges, and with vertices colored using every color in [q] (adjacent vertices are authorized to have the same color). We give an analogue of this formula for general (locally orientable) surfaces.Our approach is bijective and is inspired by Lass?s proof of the Harer-Zagier formula. We first revisit Lass?s proof and twist it into a bijection between unicellular maps on orientable surfaces with vertices colored using every color in [q], and maps with vertex set [q] on orientable surfaces with a marked spanning tree. The bijection immediately implies Harer-Zagier?s formula and a formula by Jackson concerning bipartite unicellular maps. It also shed a new light on constructions by Goulden and Nica, Schaeffer and Vassilieva, and Morales and Vassilieva. We then extend the bijection to general surfaces and obtain a correspondence between unicellular maps on general surfaces with vertices colored using every color in [q], and maps on orientable surfaces with vertex set [q]with a marked planar submap. This correspondence gives an analogue of the Harer-Zagier formula for general surfaces. We also show that this formula implies a recursion formula due to Ledoux for the numbers of unicellular maps with given numbers of vertices and edges.     

A bijection for essentially 3-connected toroidal maps

We present a bijection for toroidal maps that are essentially 3-connected (3-connected in the periodic planar representation). Our construction actually proceeds on certain closely related bipartite toroidal maps with all faces of degree 4 except for a hexagonal root-face. We show that these maps are in bijection with certain well-characterized bipartite unicellular maps. Our bijection, closely related to the recent one by Bonichon and Lévêque for essentially 4-connected toroidal triangulations, can be seen as the toroidal counterpart of the one developed in the planar case by Fusy, Poulalhon and Schaeffer, and it extends the one recently proposed by Fusy and Lévêque for essentially simple toroidal triangulations. Moreover, we show that rooted essentially 3-connected toroidal maps can be decomposed into two pieces, a toroidal part that is treated by our bijection, and a planar part that is treated by the above-mentioned planar case bijection. This yields a combinatorial derivation for the bivariate generating function of rooted essentially 3-connected toroidal maps, counted by vertices and faces.     

Counting rooted maps by genus III: Nonseparable maps

A map on an orientable surface is called separable if its underlying graph can be disconnected by splitting a vertex into two pieces, each containing a positive number of edge-ends consecutively ordered with respect to counter-clockwise rotation around the original vertex. This definition is shown to be equivalent for planar maps to Tutte's definition of a separable planar map. We develop a procedure for determining the generating functions N_g,b(x) = Σ_p=0^∞n_g,b,px^p, where n_g,b,p is the number of rooted nonseparable maps with b + p edges and p + 1 vertices on an orientable surface of genus g. Similar results are found for tree-rooted maps.     

Simplification of formulas for the number of maps on surfaces

Two combinatorial identities obtained by the author are used to simplify formulas for the number of general rooted cubic planar maps, for the number of g-essential maps on surfaces of small genus, and also for rooted Eulerian maps on the projective plane. Besides, an asymptotics for the number of maps with a large number of vertices is obtained.     

Abel maps for curves of compact type

Recently, the first Abel map for a stable curve of genus g≥2 has been constructed. Fix an integer d≥1 and let C be a stable curve of compact type of genus g≥2. We construct two d-th Abel maps for C, having different targets, and we compare the fibers of the two maps. As an application, we get a characterization of hyperelliptic stable curves of compact type with two components via the second Abel map.     

New bijective links on planar maps via orientations

This article presents new bijections on planar maps. At first a bijection is established between bipolar orientations on planar maps and specific “transversal structures” on triangulations of the 4-gon with no separating 3-cycle, which are called irreducible triangulations. This bijection specializes to a bijection between rooted non-separable maps and rooted irreducible triangulations. This yields in turn a bijection between rooted loopless maps and rooted triangulations, based on the observation that loopless maps and triangulations are decomposed in a similar way into components that are respectively non-separable maps and irreducible triangulations. This gives another bijective proof (after Wormald’s construction published in 1980) of the fact that rooted loopless maps with n edges are equinumerous to rooted triangulations with n inner vertices.     

Counting rooted maps by Genus. I

Using a combinatorial equivalent for maps, we take the first census of maps on orientable surfaces of arbitrary genus. We generalize to higher genus Tutte's recursion formula for counting slicings, and thus obtain an algorithm for counting rooted maps by genus, number of edges, and number of vertices. We then solve a special case of this recursion formula, to count slicngs with one face by genus. This leads to an explicit formula which counts rooted maps with one face by genus and number of edges.     

On weakly neighborly polyhedral maps of arbitrary genus

A weakly neighborly polyhedral map (w.n.p. map) is a 2-dimensional cell-complex which decomposes a closed 2-manifold without boundary, such that for every two vertices there is a 2-cell containing them. We lay the foundation for an investigation of the w.n.p. maps of arbitrary genus. In particular we find all the w.n.p. maps of genus 0, we prove that for everyg> the number of w.n.p. maps of genusg (orientable or not) is finite, and we find an upper bound for the number of vertices in a w.n.p. map of genusg>0. This upper bound grows as (4g(^2/3) wheng→∞.     

Absolutely continuous invariant measures for random maps with position dependent probabilities

A random map is discrete-time dynamical system in which one of a number of transformations is randomly selected and applied at each iteration of the process. Usually the map τ_k is chosen from a finite collection of maps with constant probability p_k. In this note we allow the p_k's to be functions of position. In this case, the random map cannot be considered to be a skew product. The main result provides a sufficient condition for the existence of an absolutely continuous invariant measure for position dependent random maps on [0,1]. Geometrical and topological properties of sets of absolutely continuous invariant measures, attainable by means of position dependent random maps, are studied theoretically and numerically.     

Enumeration of unrooted hypermaps of a given genus

In this paper we derive an enumeration formula for the number of hypermaps of a given genus g and given number of darts n in terms of the numbers of rooted hypermaps of genus γ≤g with m darts, where m|n. Explicit expressions for the number of rooted hypermaps of genus g with n darts were derived by Walsh [T.R.S. Walsh, Hypermaps versus bipartite maps, J. Combin. Theory B 18 (2) (1975) 155-163] for g=0, and by Arquès [D. Arquès, Hypercartes pointées sur le tore: Décompositions et dénombrements, J. Combin. Theory B 43 (1987) 275-286] for g=1. We apply our general counting formula to derive explicit expressions for the number of unrooted spherical hypermaps and for the number of unrooted toroidal hypermaps with given number of darts. We note that in this paper isomorphism classes of hypermaps of genus g≥0 are distinguished up to the action of orientation-preserving hypermap isomorphisms. The enumeration results can be expressed in terms of Fuchsian groups.     

Enumeration of multi-colored rooted maps

We present a study of n-colored rooted maps in orientable and locally orientable surfaces. As far as we know, no work on these maps has yet been published. We give a system of n functional equations satisfied by n-colored orientable rooted maps regardless of genus and with respect to edges and vertices. We exhibit the solution of this system as a vector where each component has a continued fraction form and we deduce a new equation generalizing the Dyck equation for rooted planar trees. Similar results are shown for n-colored rooted maps in locally orientable surfaces.     

F-actions and parallel-product decomposition of reflexible maps

The parallel product of two rooted maps was introduced by S.E. Wilson in 1994. The main question of this paper is whether for a given reflexible map M one can decompose the map into a parallel product of two reflexible maps. This can be achieved if and only if the monodromy (or the automorphism) group of the map has at least two minimal normal subgroups. All reflexible maps up to 100 edges, which are not parallel-product decomposable, are calculated and presented. For this purpose, all degenerate and slightly-degenerate reflexible maps are classified. In this paper the theory of F-actions is developed including a classification of quotients and parallel-product decomposition. Projections and lifts of automorphisms for quotients and for parallel products are studied. The theory can be immediately applied on rooted maps and rooted hypermaps as they are special cases of F-actions.     

Scaling limits of random bipartite planar maps with a prescribed degree sequence

We study the asymptotic behavior of uniform random maps with a prescribed face‐degree sequence, in the bipartite case, as the number of faces tends to infinity. Under mild assumptions, we show that, properly rescaled, such maps converge in distribution toward the Brownian map in the Gromov–Hausdorff sense. This result encompasses a previous one of Le Gall for uniform random q‐angulations where q is an even integer. It applies also to random maps sampled from a Boltzmann distribution, under a second moment assumption only, conditioned to be large in either of the sense of the number of edges, vertices, or faces. The proof relies on the convergence of so‐called “discrete snakes” obtained by adding spatial positions to the nodes of uniform random plane trees with a prescribed child sequence recently studied by Broutin and Marckert. This paper can alternatively be seen as a contribution to the study of the geometry of such trees.     

Map operations and k-orbit maps

A k-orbit map is a map with k flag-orbits under the action of its automorphism group. We give a basic theory of k-orbit maps and classify them up to k?4. “Hurwitz-like” upper bounds for the cardinality of the automorphism groups of 2-orbit and 3-orbit maps on surfaces are given. Furthermore, we consider effects of operations like medial and truncation on k-orbit maps and use them in classifying 2-orbit and 3-orbit maps on surfaces of small genus.     

Each finite group is a symmetry group of some map (an “Atom”-bifurcation)

Maps are studied, i.e., cell decompositions of closed two-dimensional surfaces, or two-dimensional atoms which encode bifurcations of Liouville fibrations of non-degenerate integrable Hamiltonian systems. Any finite group G is proved to be a symmetry group of an orientable map (of an atom). Moreover, one such map X(G) is constructed algorithmically. Upper bounds are obtained for the minimal genus Mg(G) of an orientable map with the given symmetry group G and for the minimal number of vertices, edges, and sides of such maps.