Hurwitz numbers for reflection groups II: Parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements

Abstract

We define parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements in well generated complex reflection groups. We characterize them in multiple natural ways, and we study two combinatorial objects associated with them: the collections RedW(g) of reduced reflection factorizations of g and RGS(W,g) of relative generating sets of g. We compute the cardinalities of these sets for large families of parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements and, in particular, we relate the size #RedW(g) with geometric invariants of Frobenius manifolds. This paper is second in a series of three; we will rely on many of its results in part III to prove uniform formulas that enumerate full reflection factorizations of parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements, generalizing the genus-0 Hurwitz numbers.