Circular pentagons and real solutions of Painleve VI equations

Abstract: We study real solutions of a class of Painleve VI equations. To each such solution we associate a geometric object, a one-parametric family of circular pentagons. We describe an algorithm which permits to compute the numbers of zeros, poles, 1-points and fixed points of the solution on the interval x>1 and their mutual position. The monodromy of the associated linear equation and parameters of the Painleve VI equation are easily recovered from the family of pentagons.