Arnold's seminar
December 29th, 1998

S.K.Lando "On the topological classification of meromorphic functions".
(a report on joint work with T.Ekedahl, M.Shapiro and A.Vainshtein).

A partial compactification of the moduli space of meromorphic
functions on genus~$g$ curves with fixed ramification at a unique
degenerate ramification point will be constructed. Together with the
Lyashko--Looijenga method involved in the subject by Arnold
this allows one to express the number of topological types
of meromorphic functions in terms of the intersection numbers
of certain characteristic classes on the moduli space of
genus~$g$ curves with marked points.