As was shown by Harer the second homology of ${\mathbb M}_g$, the moduli space of compact Riemann surfaces of genus $g$, is of rank 1, provided $g \geq 3$. This means a nontrivial second de Rham cohomology class on ${\mathbb M}_g$ is unique up to constant factor. But several canonical 2-forms on the moduli space have been constructed in various geometric contexts, and differ from each other. In this article we review some of constructions in order to provide materials for future research on "secondary geometry" of the moduli space ${\mathbb M}_g$.
This is an informal set of lecture notes on moduli spaces of curves based on a set of lectures given at the ICTP last summer. It begins at an elementary level and discusses the genus 1 case in detail. The notes then give an informal treatement of Teichmuller space and higher genus moduli spaces. The point of view is generally topological and analytical.
We prove that any connected component of the space of m-spin structures on compact Riemann surfaces with finite number of punctures and holes is homeomorphic to a quotient of the vector space R^d by a discrete group action. Our proof is based on the representation of the space of m-spin structures on a Riemann surface as a finite affine space of Z/mZ-valued functions on the fundamental group of the surface.
This survey covers earlier work of the author as well as recent work on Riemann's moduli space, its canonical cell decomposition and compactification, and the related operadic structure of arc complexes.
The moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{g}$ of compact Riemann surfaces of genus $g$ has orbifold structure, and the set of singular points of such orbifold is the \textit{branch locus} $\mathcal{B}_{g}$. Given a prime number $p \ge 7$, $\mathcal{B}_{g}$ contains isolated strata consisting of $p$-gonal Riemann surfaces for genera $g \ge {3(p-1)\over 2}$,that are multiple of ${p-1 \over 2}$. This is a generalization of the results obtained in \cite{[BCI1]} for pentagonal Riemann surfaces, and the results of \cite{[K]} and \cite{[CI3]} for zero- and one-dimensional isolated strata in the branch locus.
We study spaces and moduli spaces of Riemannian metrics with non-negative Ricci or non-negative sectional curvature on closed and open manifolds. We construct, in particular, the first classes of manifolds for which these moduli spaces have non-trivial rational homotopy, homology and cohomology groups. We also show that in every dimension at least seven (respectively, at least eight) there exist closed (respectively, open) manifolds for which the space and moduli space of Riemannian metrics with non-negative sectional curvature has infinitely many path components. A completely analogous statem…
In this paper we study the smooth moduli space of closed Riemann surfaces. This smooth moduli is an infinite cover of the usual moduli space $\mathscr{M}_g$ of closed Riemann surfaces, and is identified with the Schottky space of rank $g.$ The main theorem of the paper is: Closed Riemann surfaces are uniformizable by Schottky groups of Hausdorff dimension less than one. This work seem to be the only paper in literature to study question of Riemann surface uniformization and its Hausdorff dimension. We develop new techniques of rational norm of homological marking of Riemann surface and, decomp…
Let $\mathcal{M}_{g,ε}$ be the $ε$-thick part of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_g$ of closed genus $g$ surfaces. In this article, we show that the number of balls of radius $r$ needed to cover $\mathcal{M}_{g,ε}$ is bounded below by $(c_1g)^{2g}$ and bounded above by $(c_2g)^{2g}$, where the constants $c_1,c_2$ depend only on $ε$ and $r$, and in particular not on $g$. Using the counting result we prove that there are Riemann surfaces of arbitrarily large injectivity radius that are not close (in the Teichmüller metric) to a finite cover of a fixed closed Riemann surface. This result illustrates…
In this article we give a survey of homology computations for moduli spaces $\mathfrak{M}_{g,1}^m$ of Riemann surfaces with genus $g\geqslant 0$, one boundary curve, and $m\geqslant 0$ punctures. While rationally and stably this question has a satisfying answer by the Madsen-Weiss theorem, the unstable homology remains notoriously complicated. We discuss calculations with integral, mod-2, and rational coefficients. Furthermore, we determine, in most cases, explicit generators using homology operations.
The moduli spaces of compact and connected Riemann surfaces has been a central topic in modern mathematics in recent years. Thus their homological dimensions become important invariants. Motivated by the emergence mathematical counterparts of open-closed string theory, we give an estimate of rational homological dimension of Riemann suraces with possible boundary and marked points(can lie on both interior and boundary). We hope it will have applications in open-closed theory, for example, open-closed Gromov-Witten theory in the future.
We construct moduli spaces of complex affine and dilation surfaces. Using ideas of Veech, we show that the the moduli space of affine surfaces with fixed genus and with cone points of fixed complex order is a holomorphic affine bundle over the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. Similarly, the moduli space of dilation surfaces is a covering space of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. We classify the connected components of the moduli space of dilation surfaces and show that any component is an orbifold K(G,1) where G is the framed mapping class group of Calderon-Salter.
In this article we show that any finite cover of the moduli space of closed Riemann surfaces of $g$ genus with $g\geq 2$ does not admit any complete finite-volume Hermitian metric of non-negative scalar curvature. Moreover, we also show that the total mass of the scalar curvature of any almost Hermitian metric, which is equivalent to the Teichmüller metric, on any finite cover of the moduli space is negative provided that the scalar curvature is bounded from below.
In this article we first show that any finite cover of the moduli space of closed Riemann surfaces of genus $g$ with $g\geq 2$ does not admit any Riemannian metric $ds^2$ of nonnegative scalar curvature such that $ds^2 \succ ds_{T}^2$ where $ds_{T}^2$ is the Teichmüller metric. Our second result is the proof that any cover $M$ of the moduli space $\mathbb{M}_{g}$ of a closed Riemann surface $S_{g}$ does not admit any complete Riemannian metric of uniformly positive scalar curvature in the quasi-isometry class of the Teichmüller metric, which implies a conjecture of Farb-Weinberger.
In this short note we explain how to adapt the construction of two Riemannian metrics on the $\mathrm{SL}(3,\mathbb{R})$-Hitchin component to the deformation space of globally hyperbolic anti-de Sitter structures: the pressure metric and the Loftin metric (studied by Qiongling Li). We show that the former is degenerate and we characterize its degenerate locus, whereas the latter is nowhere degenerate and the Fuchsian locus is a totally geodesic copy of Teichmüller space endowed with a multiple of the Weil-Petersson metric.
We study Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics with narrow end invariant and develop techniques to control length-functions and twist parameters along them and prescribe their itinerary in the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. This class of geodesics is rich enough to provide for examples of closed WP geodesics in the thin part of the moduli space, as well as divergent WP geodesic rays with minimal filling ending lamination. Some ingredients of independent interest are the following: A strength version of Wolpert's Geodesic Limit Theorem proved in Sec.4. The stability of hierarchy resolution paths bet…
Let $S_g$ be a closed surface of genus $g$ and $\mathbb{M}_g$ be the moduli space of $S_g$ endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric. In this paper we investigate the Weil-Petersson curvatures of $\mathbb{M}_g$ for large genus $g$. First, we study the asymptotic behavior of the extremal Weil-Petersson holomorphic sectional curvatures at certain thick surfaces in $\mathbb{M}_g$ as $g \to \infty$. Then we prove two curvature properties on the whole space $\mathbb{M}_g$ as $g\to \infty$ in a probabilistic way.
We present a simplified formulation of open intersection numbers, as an alternative to the theory initiated by Pandharipande, Solomon and Tessler. The relevant moduli spaces consist of Riemann surfaces (either with or without boundary) with only interior marked points. These spaces have a combinatorial description using a generalization of ribbon graphs, with a straightforward compactification and corresponding intersection theory. Crucially, the generating functions for the two different constructions of open intersection numbers are identical. In particular, our construction provides a compl…
