Let $\ccM_{g,[n]}$, for $2g-2+n>0$, be the stack of genus $g$, stable algebraic curves, endowed with $n$ unordered marked points.
Looijenga introduced the notion of Prym level structures in order to construct smooth projective Galois coverings of the stack $\ccM_{g}$.
In §2 of this paper, we introduce the notion of Looijenga level structure which generalizes Looijenga construction and provides a tower of Galois coverings of $\ccM_{g,[n]}$ equivalent to the tower of all geometric level structures over $\ccM_{g,[n]}$.
In §3, Looijenga level structures are interpreted geometrically in terms of moduli of curves with symmetry. A byproduct of this characterization is a simple criterion for their smoothness. As a consequence of this criterion, it is shown that Looijenga level structures are smooth under mild hypotheses.
The second part of the paper, from §4, deals with the problem of describing the D-M boundary of level structures. In §6, a description is given of the nerve of the D-M boundary of abelian level structures. In §7, it is shown how this construction can be used to "approximate" the nerve of Looijenga level structures. These results are then applied to elaborate a new approach to the congruence subgroup problem for the Teichmüller modular group.
We explore the relation between cohomology jump loci in a finite Galois cover, formality properties and algebraic monodromy action. We show that the jump loci of the base and total space are essentially the same, provided the base space is 1-formal and the monodromy action in degree 1 is trivial. We use reduced multinet structures on line arrangements to construct components of the first characteristic variety of the Milnor fiber in degree 1, and to prove that the monodromy action is non-trivial in degree 1. For an arbitrary line arrangement, we prove that the triviality of the monodromy in de…
Two decades ago, as part of their work of generic vanishing theorems, Green-Lazarsfeld showed that over a compact Kahler manifold $X$, the cohomology jump loci in the $Pic^τ(X)$ are all translates of subtori. In this paper, we generalize this result to higher dimensional vector bundles. It is showed by Nadel that locally the moduli space of vector bundles with vanishing chern classes is canonically isomorphic to a quadratic cone in the Zariski tangent space of a point. We prove that under the isomorphism, the cohomology jump loci are defined by linear equations.
Given an action of a finite group $G$ on the derived category of a smooth projective variety $X$ we relate the fixed loci of the induced $G$-action on moduli spaces of stable objects in $D^b(\mathrm{Coh}(X))$ with moduli spaces of stable objects in the equivariant category $D^b(\mathrm{Coh}(X))_G$. As an application we obtain a criterion for the equivariant category of a symplectic action on the derived category of a symplectic surface to be equivalent to the derived category of a surface. This generalizes the derived McKay correspondence, and yields a general framework for describing fixed lo…
For every fixed genus $g\geq 1$, we consider all quadruples $Q=(w_0,w_1,w_2,d)\in\mathbb{Z}^4_{>0}$ with the property that any smooth degree-$d$ curve embedded in the weighted projective plane $\mathbb{P}^2(w_0,w_1,w_2)$ has genus $g$. We show there are infinitely many quadruples $Q$ satisfying this condition. For every such $Q$, we consider $Z_Q\subseteq M_g$ the locus in the moduli space of all smooth degree-$d$ curves embedded in $\mathbb{P}^2(w_0,w_1,w_2)$. We show that, as $Q$ varies over all these quadruples, there are only finitely many different loci $Z_Q\subseteq M_g$.
Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic $0$ and $\mathcal{M}_d$ the moduli space of rational maps on $\mathbb{P}^1$ of degree $d$ over $k$. This paper describes the automorphism loci $A\subset \mathrm{Rat}_d$ and $\mathcal{A}\subset \mathcal{M}_d$ and the singular locus $\mathcal{S}\subset\mathcal{M}_d$. In particular, we determine which groups occur as subgroups of the automorphism group of some $[ϕ]\in\mathcal{M}_d$ for a given $d$ and calculate the dimension of the locus. Next, we prove an analogous theorem to the Rauch-Popp-Oort characterization of singular points on the…
This paper contains two results on Hodge loci in the moduli space of curves. The first concerns fibrations over curves with a non-trivial flat part in the Fujita decomposition. If local Torelli theorem holds for the fibres and the fibration is non-trivial, an appropriate exterior power of the cohomology of the fiber admits a Hodge substructure. In the case of curves it follows that the moduli image of the fibers is contained in a proper Hodge locus. The second result deals with divisors in the moduli space of curves. It is proved that the image of a divisor in the moduli of principally polariz…
We apply the method of Dimca-Papadima to study the cohomology jump loci in the representation variety and the moduli space of vector bundles with vanishing chern classes for a compact Kähler manifold. We introduce modules over differential graded Lie algebra to extend results of Dimca-Papadima to a general point in the representation variety or the moduli space. We show that locally the cohomology jump loci is isomorphic to the resonance variety via the exponential map. This paper generalizes a previous result of the author.
We construct and study the moduli of continuous representations of a profinite group with integral $p$-adic coefficients. We present this moduli space over the moduli space of continuous pseudorepresentations and show that this morphism is algebraizable. When this profinite group is the absolute Galois group of a $p$-adic local field, we show that these moduli spaces admit Zariski-closed loci cutting out Galois representations that are potentially semi-stable with bounded Hodge-Tate weights and a given Hodge and Galois type. As a consequence, we show that these loci descend to the universal de…
We establish that the geometric action of the absolute Galois group on the étale fundamental group of moduli spaces of curves induces a Galois action on its stack inertia subgroups, and that this action is given by cyclotomy conjugacy. This result extends the special case of inertia without étale factorisation previously established by the authors. It is here obtained in the general case by comparing deformations of Galois actions. Since the stack inertia corresponds to the first level of the stack stratification of the space, this results, by analogy with the arithmetic of the Deligne-Mumford…
We define a proper moduli stack for degree $p$ covers $f:Y \to \cX$ where $\cX$ is a twisted stable curve in the sense of [5] and [4], and $Y$ is a stable curve which via $f$ is a torsor over $\cX$ under a finite flat group scheme $\cG \to \cX$.
Given two vector bundles E and F on a variety X and a morphism from Sym^2(E) to F, we compute the cohomology class of the locus in X where the kernel of this morphism contains a quadric of prescribed rank. Our formulas have many applications to moduli theory: (i) we find a simple proof of Borcherds' result that the Hodge class on the moduli space of polarized K3 surfaces of fixed genus is of Noether-Lefschetz type, (ii) we construct an explicit canonical divisor on the Hurwitz space parametrizing degree k covers of the projective line from curves of genus 2k-1, (iii) we provide a closed formul…
We define two tau functions, $τ$ and $\hatτ$ , on moduli spaces of spectral covers of $GL(n)$ Hitchin's systems. Analyzing the properties of $τ$, we express the divisor class of the universal Hitchin's discriminant in terms of standard generators of the rational Picard group of the moduli spaces of spectral covers with variable base. The function $\hatτ$ is used to compute the divisor of canonical 1-forms with multiple zeros.
In this paper we give a characterization of the height of K3 surfaces in positive characteristic. This enables us to calculate the cycle classes of the loci in families of K3 surfaces where the height is at least h. The formulas for such loci can be seen as generalizations of the famous formula of Deuring for the number of supersingular elliptic curves in positive characteristic. In order to describe the tangent spaces to these loci we study the first cohomology of higher closed forms.
We study the cone of Moriwaki divisors on \bar{M}_g by means of augmented base loci. Using a result of Moriwaki, we prove that an R-divisor D satisfies the strict Moriwaki inequalities if and only if the augmented base locus of D is contained in the boundary of \bar{M}_g. Then we draw some interesting consequences on the Zariski decomposition of divisors on \bar{M}_g, on the minimal model program of \bar{M}_g and on the log canonical models \bar{M}_g(α).
We extend a previous result of Feyzbakhsh concerning the injectivity of a map of moduli spaces and we use this result to construct curves whose Brill-Noether loci have unexpected dimension.
The symplectic Brill--Noether locus ${\mathcal S}_{2n, K}^k$ associated to a curve $C$ parametrises stable rank $2n$ bundles over $C$ with at least $k$ sections and which carry a nondegenerate skewsymmetric bilinear form with values in the canonical bundle. This is a symmetric determinantal variety whose tangent spaces are defined by a symmetrised Petri map. We obtain upper bounds on the dimensions of various components of ${\mathcal S}_{2n, K}^k$. We show the nonemptiness of several ${\mathcal S}_{2n, K}^k$, and in most of these cases also the existence of a component which is generically smo…
Let us consider the locus in the moduli space of curves of genus 2k defined by curves with a pencil of degree k. Since the Brill-Noether number is equal to -2, such a locus has codimension two. Using the method of test surfaces, we compute the class of its closure in the moduli space of stable curves.
In this note we derive from deep results due to Clozel-Ullmo the density of Noether-Lefschetz loci inside the moduli space of marked (polarized) irreducible holomorphic symplectic (IHS) varieties. In particular we obtain the density of Hilbert schemes of points on projective $K3$ surfaces and of projective generalized Kummer varieties in their moduli spaces. We present applications to the existence of rational curves on projective deformations of such varieties, to the study of relevant cones of divisors, and a refinement of Hassett's result on cubic fourfolds whose Fano variety of lines is is…
Let $\mathcal{M}$ be a moduli space of polystable rank 2-bundles bundles with fixed determinant (a moduli space of $\mathrm{PU}(2)$-instantons) on a Gauduchon surface with $p_g=0$ and $b_1=1$. We study the holomorphic structure of $\mathcal{M}$ around a circle $\mathcal{T}$ of regular reductions. Our model space is a "blowup flip passage", which is a manifold with boundary whose boundary is a projective fibration, and whose interior comes with a natural complex structure. We prove that a neighborhood of the boundary of the blowup $\hat{\mathcal{M}}_{\mathcal{T}}$ of $\mathcal{M}$ at $\mathcal{…
We consider two K3 surfaces defined over an arbitrary field, together with a smooth proper moduli space of stable sheaves on each. When the moduli spaces have the same dimension, we prove that if the étale cohomology groups (with Q_ell coefficients) of the two surfaces are isomorphic as Galois representations, then the same is true of the two moduli spaces. In particular, if the field of definition is finite and the K3 surfaces have equal zeta functions, then so do the moduli spaces, even when the moduli spaces are not birational.
We prove that the moduli space of tetragonal curves of genus g>6 is rational when g is congruent to 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10 modulo 12 and not equal to 9, 45.
It is shown that there are globally defined Lagrangian distributions on the stable loci of derived Quot-stacks of coherent sheaves on Calabi--Yau four-folds. Dividing by these distributions produces perfectly obstructed smooth stacks with globally defined $-1$-shifted potentials, whose derived critical loci give back the stable loci of smooth stacks of sheaves in global Darboux form.
The notion of d-critical loci was introduced by Joyce in order to give classical shadows of $(-1)$-shifted symplectic derived schemes. In this paper, we discuss birational geometry for d-critical loci, by introducing notions such as `d-critical flips', `d-critical flops', etc. They are not birational maps of the underlying spaces, but rather should be understood as virtual birational maps. We show that several wall-crossing phenomena of moduli spaces of stable objects on Calabi-Yau 3-folds are described in terms of d-critical birational geometry. Among them, we show that wall-crossing diagrams…
Consider the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{g}$ of Riemann surfaces of genus $g\geq 2$ and its Deligne-Munford compactification $\bar{\mathcal{M}_{g}}$. We are interested in the branch locus ${\mathcal{B}_{g}}$ for $g>2$, i.e., the subset of $\mathcal{M}_{g}$ consisting of surfaces with automorphisms. It is well-known that the set of hyperelliptic surfaces (the hyperelliptic locus) is connected in $\mathcal{M}_{g}$ but the set of (cyclic) trigonal surfaces is not. By contrast, we show that for $g\geq 5$ the set of (cyclic) trigonal surfaces is connected in $\bar{\mathcal{M}_{g}}$. To do so we exhi…
In this note we give an easy proof of the existence of generically smooth components of the expected dimension of certain Brill--Noether loci of stable rank 2 vector bundles on a curve with general moduli, with related applications to Hilbert scheme of scrolls.
In this article we study Brill-Noether loci of moduli space of stable bundles over smooth surfaces. We define Petri map as an analogy with the case of curves. We show the non-emptiness of certain Brill-Noether loci over very general quintic hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^3$, and use the Petri map to produce components of expected dimension.
Inside the moduli space of curves of genus three with one marked point, we consider the locus of hyperelliptic curves with a marked Weierstrass point, and the locus of non-hyperelliptic curves with a marked hyperflex. These loci have codimension two. We compute the classes of their closures in the moduli space of stable curves of genus three with one marked point. Similarly, we compute the class of the closure of the locus of curves of genus four with an even theta characteristic vanishing with order three at a certain point. These loci naturally arise in the study of minimal strata of Abelian…
We consider components of Hurwitz moduli space of G-Galois covers and set up a powerful algebraic framework to study the set of corresponding equivalence classes of monodromy maps. Within that we study geometric stabilisation by various G-covers branched over the disc. Our results addresses the problem to decide equivalence and stable equivalence algebraically. We recover a homological invariant, which we show to distinguish the equivalence classes of given boundary monodromy and Nielsen type, if the latter is sufficiently large in the appropriate sense.
Let $\mathcal H_g$ be the moduli space of genus $g$ hyperelliptic curves. In this note, we study the locus $\mathcal L$ in $\mathcal H_g$ of curves admitting a $G$-action of given ramification type $σ$ and inclusions between such loci. For each genus we determine the list of all possible groups, the inclusions among the loci, and the corresponding equations of the generic curve in $\mathcal L$. The proof of the results is based solely on representations of finite subgroups of $PGL_2 (\mathbb C)$ and the Riemann-Hurwitz formula.
Consider the moduli space $M_C(r; K_C)$ of stable rank r vector bundles on a curve $C$ with canonical determinant, and let $h$ be the maximum number of linearly independent global sections of these bundles. If $C$ embeds in a K3 surface $X$ as a generator of $Pic(X)$ and the genus $g$ of $C$ is sufficiently high, we show the Brill-Noether locus $BN_C \subset M_C(r; K_C)$ of bundles with $h$ global sections is a smooth projective Hyperkähler manifold of dimension $2g -2r \lfloor \frac{g}{r}\rfloor$, isomorphic to a moduli space of stable vector bundles on $X$.
In this paper we investigate the cohomological obstruction for the field of moduli of a $G$-cover to be a field of definition, in the case of local fields and covers with tame admissible reduction. This applies in particular to $p$-adic fields where $p$ does not divide the order of the group $G$. We give examples of $G$-covers with field of moduli $\QQ_p$ that cannot be defined over $\QQ_p$, for all primes $p>5$.
We consider the loci of d-elliptic curves in $M_2$, and corresponding loci of d-elliptic surfaces in $A_2$. We show how a description of these loci as quotients of a product of modular curves can be used to calculate cohomology of natural local systems on them, both as mixed Hodge structures and $\ell$-adic Galois representations. We study in particular the case d=2, and compute the Euler characteristic of the moduli space of n-pointed bi-elliptic genus 2 curves in the Grothendieck group of Hodge structures.
We analyze the stratification of the moduli space S_g of spin curves of genus g given by the dimension of the theta-characteristic. Using the relation between gaussian maps and the strata S_g^r, we construct "regular" components of S_g^r having expected codimension r(r+1)/2 inside S_g. We also relate moduli spaces of pointed curves with a moving spin structure to the classical Gieseker-Petri loci in M_g. We show that the locus of curves for which the Gieseker-Petri theorem fails for a pencil is always a divisor on M_g. Finally, we give a sufficient criterion for the injectivity of Gaussian map…
Given a smooth prime Fano threefold $X$ of genus 7 we consider its homologically projectively dual curve $Γ$ and the natural integral functor $Φ^{!}:D^b(X) \to D^b(Γ)$. We prove that, for $d\geq 6$, $Φ^{!}$ gives a birational map from a component of the moduli scheme $M_X(2,1,d)$ of rank 2 stable sheaves on $X$ with $c_1=1$, $c_2=d$ to a generically smooth $2d-9$-dimensional component of the Brill-Noether variety $W^{2d-11}_{d-5,5d-24}$ of stable vector bundles on $Γ$ of rank $d-5$ and degree $5d-24$ with at least $2d-10$ sections. This map turns out to be an isomorphism for $d=6$, and the mod…
We study the moduli space $\widetilde{\calM}$ of marked cubic surfaces. By classical work of A.\,B. Coble, this has a compactification $\widetilde{M}$, which is linearly acted upon by the group $W(E_6)$. $\widetilde{M}$ is given as the intersection of 30 cubics in $\bP^9$. For the morphism $\widetilde{calM} \to \bP(1,2,3,4,5)$ forgetting the marking, followed by Clebsch's invariant map, we give explicit formulas. I.e., Clebsch's invariants are expressed in terms of Coble's irrational invariants. As an application, we give an affirmative answer to the inverse Galois problem for cubic surfaces o…
We show that the Galois group $Gal(\bar{\Q} /\Q)$ operates faithfully on the set of connected components of the moduli spaces of surfaces of general type, and also that for each element $σ\in Gal(\bar{\Q} /\Q)$ different from the identity and from complex conjugation, there is a surface of general type such that $X$ and the Galois conjugate variety $X^σ$ have nonisomorphic fundamental groups. The result was announced by the second author at the Alghero Conference 'Topology of algebraic varieties' in september 2006. Before the present paper was actually written, we received a very interesting p…
We prove that the cohomology jump loci in the space of rank one local systems over a smooth quasi-projective variety are finite unions of torsion translates of subtori. The main ingredients are a recent result of Dimca-Papadima, some techniques introduced by Simpson, together with properties of the moduli space of logarithmic connections constructed by Nitsure and Simpson.
In this paper we construct Shimura subvarieties of dimension bigger than one of the moduli space of polarised abelian varieties of a given dimension, which are generically contained in the Pym loci of (ramified) double covers. The idea is to adapt the techniques already used to construct Shimura curves in the Prym loci to the higher dimensional case, namely to use families of Galois covers of the projective line. The case of abelian covers is treated in detail, since in this case it is possible to make explicit computations that allow to verify a sufficient condition for such a family to yield…
We give a myriad of examples of extremal divisors, rigid curves, and birational morphisms with unexpected properties for the Grothendieck--Knudsen moduli space $\bar M_{0,n}$ of stable rational curves. The basic tool is an isomorphism between $M_{0,n}$ and the Brill--Noether locus of a very special reducible curve corresponding to a hypergraph.
We announce the construction of toroidal partial compactifications of the moduli spaces of mixed Hodge structures with polarized graded quotients. They are moduli spaces of log mixed Hodge structures with polarized graded quotients. We include an application to the analyticity of zero loci of some functions.
The locus of genus-two curves with n marked Weierstrass points has codimension n inside the moduli space of genus-two curves with n marked points, for n<=6. It is well known that the class of the closure of the divisor obtained for n=1 spans an extremal ray of the cone of effective divisor classes. We generalize this result for all n: we show that the class of the closure of the locus of genus-two curves with n marked Weierstrass points spans an extremal ray of the cone of effective classes of codimension n, for n<=6. A related construction produces extremal nef curve classes in moduli spaces …
Given an object over the algebraic closure Qbar of Q, there is often no reason for invariants of the corresponding holomorphic object to be preserved by the absolute Galois group Gal(Qbar/Q), and in general this is not true, although it is sometimes surprising to observe in practice. The case of covers of the projective line branched only over the points 0, 1, and infinity, through Belyi's theorem, leads to Grothendieck's dessins d'enfants program for understanding the absolute Galois group through its faithful action on such covers. This note is motivated by Catanese's question about a higher…
The paper studies the locus in the rank 2 Higgs bundle moduli space corresponding to points which are critical for d of the Poisson commuting functions. These correspond to the Higgs field vanishing on a divisor of degree D. The degree D critical locus has an induced integrable system related to K(-D)-twisted Higgs bundles. Topological and differential-geometric properties of the critical loci are addressed.
Let $\M_g$ be the course moduli space of complex projective nonsingular curves of genus $g$. We prove that when the Brill-Noether number $ρ(g,r,n)$ is non-negative every component of the Petri locus $P^r_{g,n}\subset \M_g$ whose general member is a curve $C$ such that $W^{r+1}_n(C) = \emptyset$, has codimension one in $\M_g$.
We extend the notion of absolute subsets of Betti moduli spaces of smooth algebraic varieties to the case of normal varieties. As a consequence we prove that twisted cohomology jump loci in rank one over a normal variety are a finite union of translated subtori. We show that the same holds for jump loci twisted by a unitary local system in the case where the underlying variety $X$ is projective with $H^1(X,\mathbb{Q})$ pure of weight one. Lastly, we study the interaction of these loci with Hodge theoretic data naturally associated to the representation variety of fundamental groups of smooth p…
