Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Ekedahl, Lando, Shapiro, and Vainshtein announced a remarkable formula expressing Hurwitz numbers (counting covers of the projective line with specified simple branch points, and specified branching over one other point) in terms of Hodge integrals. We give a proof of this formula using virtual localization on the moduli space of stable maps, and describe how the proof could be simplified by the proper algebro-geometric definition of a "relative space".
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Graber et al. (2000) studied this question.