# Riemann-Roch for Graphs and Applications

I plan to write several posts related to the Riemann-Roch Theorem for Graphs, which was published several years ago in this paper written jointly with Serguei Norine.  In this post I want to explain the statement of the theorem, give some anecdotal background, and mention a few applications which have been discovered in recent years.

The Riemann-Roch Theorem

The (classical) Riemann-Roch Theorem is a very useful result about analytic functions on compact one-dimensional complex manifolds (also known as Riemann surfaces).  Given a set of constraints on the orders of zeros and poles, the Riemann-Roch Theorem computes the dimension of the space of analytic functions satisfying those constraints.  More precisely, if $D$ denotes the set of constraints and $r(D)$ is the dimension of the space of analytic functions satisfying those constraints, then the Riemann-Roch theorem asserts that

$r(D) - r(K-D) = {\rm deg}(D) + 1 - g$

where $g$ is the genus (“number of holes”) of the Riemann surface $X$, ${\rm deg}(D)$ is the total number of constraints, and $K$ is the “canonical divisor” on $X$.  See the Wikipedia page for much more information.