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Let XX be a compact Riemann surface (equivalently, a smooth projective curve over C\C) of genus gg, let GG be a group of automorphisms acting on XX, and let g0g_0 be the genus of the quotient Y:=X/GY:=X/G. The natural projection XYX \to Y is branched at rr points in YY, and the corresponding generators of the monodromy group have orders m1m_1, m2m_2, \ldots, mrm_r; the sequence of integers [g0;m1,,mr][g_0; m_1, \ldots, m_r] is called the signature of the group action.

The label for the family of higher genus curves with a group GG \simeq SmallGroup(n,d)(n,d) acting on it with signature [g0;m1,,mr][g_0; m_1, \ldots, m_r] is given as g.n-d.g0.m1-m2--mrg.n\text{-}d.g_0.m_1\text{-}m_2\text{-} \cdots \text{-}m_r For example, the genus 3 Hurwitz curve with automorphism group PSL(2,7)(2,7) \simeq SmallGroup(168,42)(168,42) and signature [0;2,3,7][0;2,3,7] is labeled: 5.168-42.0.2-3-7\text{5.168-42.0.2-3-7} There may be several inequivalent actions described by that label, though. We also distinguish the actions by which conjugacy classes in GG the monodromy generators are from, creating passport labels. For our previous example 5.168-42.0.2-3-7.1 and 5.168-42.0.2-3-7.2\text{5.168-42.0.2-3-7.1} \text{ and } \text{5.168-42.0.2-3-7.2} represent the two distinct actions of PSL(2,7)(2,7) as a Hurwitz group on a genus 33 curve up to refined passports.

The suffixes 11 and 22 are ordinals that are assigned by lexicographically ordering the sequence of conjugacy class identifiers associated to a refined passport.

In order to explicitly identify elements of GG listed in generating vectors for a given refined passport (and elsewhere), we choose a particular permutation representation of GG as a subgroup of SGS_{|G|}, the symmetric group on G|G| elements (this choice depends only on the isomorphism class of GG and is the same for all GG with the same group identifier).