Abstract
We address the enumeration of q-coloured planar maps counted by the number of edges and the number of monochromatic edges. We prove that the associated generating function is differentially algebraic, that is, satisfies a non-trivial polynomial differential equation with respect to the edge variable. We give explicitly a differential system that characterizes this series. We then prove a similar result for planar triangulations, thus generalizing a result of Tutte dealing with their proper q-colourings. In statistical physics terms, we solve the q-state Potts model on random planar lattices. This work follows a first paper by the same authors, where the generating function was proved to be algebraic for certain values of q, including and 3. It is known to be transcendental in general. In contrast, our differential system holds for an indeterminate q. For certain special cases of combinatorial interest (four colours; proper q-colourings; maps equipped with a spanning forest), we derive from this system, in the case of triangulations, an explicit differential equation of order 2 defining the generating function. For general planar maps, we also obtain a differential equation of order 3 for the four-colour case and for the self-dual Potts model.