Very high genus double Hurwitz numbers via mixing times

Abstract

We obtain very high genus asymptotics for double Hurwitz numbers when both the size $n$ and the genus $g$ go to infinity, under the constraint that $g$ grows much faster than $n$, more precisely that $\frac{2g}{n}-\ln n\to\infty$. Our proof relies on adapting arguments about the mixing time of the transposition random walk introduced by Diaconis and Shahshahani.