On Rational Functions with More than Three Branch Points

Let d be a positive integer and Λ be a collection of partitions of d of the form (a1, …, ap), (b1, …, bq), (m1 + 1, 1, …, 1), …, (ml + 1, 1, …, 1), where (m1, …, ml) is a partition of p + q − 2 > 0. We prove that there exists a rational function on the Riemann sphere with branch data Λ if and only if max(m1, …, ml) < d/GCD(a1, …, ap, b1, …, bq). As an application, we give a new class of branch data which can be realized by Belyi functions on the Riemann sphere.