Klein Quartic - Dessin D'enfants

Dessin D'enfants

The dessin d'enfant on the Klein quartic associated with the quotient map by its automorphism group (with quotient the Riemann sphere) is precisely the 1-skeleton of the order-3 heptagonal tiling. That is, the quotient map is ramified over the points 0, 1728, and ∞; dividing by 1728 yields a Belyi function (ramified at 0, 1, and ∞), where the 56 vertices (black points in dessin) lie over 0, the midpoints of the 84 edges (white points in dessin) lie over 1, and the centers of the 24 heptagons lie over infinity. The resulting dessin is a "platonic" dessin, meaning edge-transitive and "clean" (each white point has valence 2).