Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2018
Gunningham [‘Spin Hurwitz numbers and topological quantum field theory’, Geom. Topol.20(4) (2016), 1859–1907] constructed an extended topological quantum field theory (TQFT) to obtain a closed formula for all spin Hurwitz numbers. In this note, we use a gluing theorem for spin Hurwitz numbers to re-prove Gunningham’s formula. We also describe a TQFT formalism naturally induced by the gluing theorem.
The author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-1206192.