Melody Chan: Tropical hyperelliptic curves
Abstract
A tropical curve is a vertex-weighted metric graph. It is hyperelliptic if it admits an
involution whose quotient is a tree. Assuming no prior knowledge of tropical geometry, I
will develop the theory of tropical hyperelliptic curves and discuss the relationship with
classical plane curves and their Berkovich skeleta. Along the way, we will see lots of nice
combinatorics, including harmonic morphisms, stacky polyhedral fans, and Newton
triangulations.