We show that $\mathcal{M}_{g,n}$, the moduli space of smooth curves of genus $g$ together with $n$ marked points, is unirational for $g=12$ and $2 \leq n\leq 4$ and for $g=13$ and $1 \leq n \leq 3$, by constructing suitable dominant families of projective curves in $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^2$ and $\mathbb{P}^3$ respectively. We also exhibit several new unirationality results for moduli spaces of smooth curves of genus $g$ together with $n$ unordered points, establishing their unirationality for $g=11, n=7$ and $g=12, n =5,6$.
We illustrate the use of the computer algebra system Macaulay2 for simplifications of classical unirationality proofs. We explicitly treat the moduli spaces of curves of genus g=10, 12 and 14.
Using the connection discovered by Hassett between the Noether-Lefschetz moduli space of special cubic fourfolds of discriminant 42 and the moduli space F_{22} of polarized K3 surfaces of genus 22, we show that the universal K3 surface over F_{22} is unirational.
We prove that the moduli spaces of K3 surfaces with non-symplectic involutions are unirational. As a by-product we describe configuration spaces of 4<d<9 points in the projective plane as arithmetic quotients of type IV.
In this note we look at the moduli space $\cR_{3,2}$ of double covers of genus three curves, branched along 4 distinct points. This space was studied by Bardelli, Ciliberto and Verra. It admits a dominating morphism $\cR_{3,2} \to {\mathcal A}_4$ to Siegel space. We show that there is a birational model of $\cR_{3,2}$ as a group quotient of a product of two Grassmannian varieties. This gives a proof of the unirationality of $\cR_{3,2}$ and hence a new proof for the unirationality of ${\mathcal A}_4$.
We provide explicit descriptions of the generic members of Hassett's divisors $\mathcal C_d$ for relevant $18\leq d\leq 38$ and for $d=44$. In doing so, we prove that $\mathcal C_d$ is unirational for $18\leq d\leq 38,d=44$. As a corollary, we prove that the moduli space $\mathcal N_{d}$ of polarized K3 surfaces of degree $d$ is unirational for $d=14,26,38$. The case $d=26$ is entirely new, while the other two cases have been previously proven by Mukai.
We combine the idea of Chang and Ran [Invent. Math. 76 (1984), 41-54] of using monads of vector bundles on the projective 3-space to prove the unirationality of the moduli spaces of curves of low genus with our classification of globally generated vector bundles with small first Chern class $c_1$ on the projective 3-space to get an alternative argument for the unirationality of the moduli spaces of curves of degree at most 13 (based on the general framework of Chang and Ran).
We provide methods to construct explicit examples of $K3$ surfaces. This leads to unirational constructions of Noether--Lefschetz divisors inside the moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g$. We implement Mukai's unirationality construction of the moduli spaces of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g\in\{6,\dots, 10, 12\}$, and we also present a new constructive proof of the unirationality of the moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $11$. Furthermore, we show the existence of three unirational hypersurfaces in any moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g$.
In this paper the notion of rational simple connectedness for the quintic Fano threefold $V_5\subset \mathbb{P}^6$ is studied and unirationality of the moduli spaces $\overline{M}_{0,0}^{\text{bir}}(V_5,d)$, with $d \ge 1$, is proved. Many further unirationality results for special moduli spaces of rational curves on quadric hypersurfaces and del Pezzo surfaces are obtained via explicit birational methods.
The object of this note is the moduli spaces of cubic fourfolds (resp., Gushel-Mukai fourfolds) which contain some special rational surfaces. Under some hypotheses on the families of such surfaces, we develop a general method to show the unirationality of the moduli spaces of the $n$-pointed such fourfolds. We apply this to some codimension 1 loci of cubic fourfolds (resp., Gushel-Mukai fourfolds) appeared in the literature recently.
We prove that the moduli space A_3(1,1,4) of polarized abelian threefolds with polarization of type (1,1,4) is unirational. By a result of Birkenhake and Lange this implies the unirationality of the isomorphic moduli space A_3(1,4,4). The result is based on the study the Hurwitz space H_{4,n}(Y) of quadruple coverings of an elliptic curve Y simply branched in n points. We prove the unirationality of its codimension one subvariety H^{0}_{4,A}(Y) which parametrizes quadruple coverings π:X --> Y with Tschirnhausen modules isomorphic to A^{-1}, where A\in Pic^{n/2}Y, and for which π^*:J(Y)--> J(X)…
In this paper, we compare the moduli spaces of rank-3 vector bundles stable with respect to different ample divisors over rational ruled surfaces. We also discuss the irreducibility, unirationality, and rationality of these moduli spaces.
We prove that the moduli space of polarized $K3$ surfaces of genus eleven with $n$ marked points is unirational when $n\leq 6$ and uniruled when $n\leq7$. As a consequence, we settle a long standing but not proved assertion about the unirationality of $\cal{M}_{11,n}$ for $n\leq6$. We also prove that the moduli space of polarized $K3$ surfaces of genus eleven with $9$ marked points has non-negative Kodaira dimension.
We present a structure theorem for the moduli space R_7 of Prym curves of genus 7 as a projective bundle over the moduli space of 7-nodal rational curves. The existence of this parametrization implies the unirationality of R_7 and that of the moduli space of Nikulin surfaces of genus 7, as well as the rationality of the moduli space of Nikulin surfaces of genus 7 with a distinguished line. Using the results in genus 7, we then establish that R_8 is uniruled.
We study the moduli spaces of elliptic K3 surfaces of Picard number at least 3, i.e. $U\oplus \langle -2k \rangle$-polarized K3 surfaces. Such moduli spaces are proved to be of general type for $k\geq 220$. The proof relies on the low-weight cusp form trick developed by Gritsenko, Hulek and Sankaran. Furthermore, explicit geometric constructions of some elliptic K3 surfaces lead to the unirationality of these moduli spaces for $k < 11$ and for 19 other isolated values up to $k=64$.
We run Mori's program for the moduli space of pointed stable rational curves with divisor $K +\sum a_{i}ψ_{i}$. We prove that, without assuming the F-conjecture, the birational model for the pair is the Hassett's moduli space of weighted pointed stable rational curves, without any modification of weight coefficients.
The aim of this paper is to study some modular contractions of the moduli space of stable pointed curves. These new moduli spaces, which are modular compactifications of the moduli space of smooth pointed curves, are related with the minimal model program for the moduli space of stable pointed curves and have been introduced in a previous work of the authors. We interpret them as log canonical models of adjoints divisors and we then describe the Shokurov decomposition of a region of boundary divisors on the moduli space of stable pointed curves.
The notion of $m/Γ$-pointed stable curves is introduced. It should be viewed as a generalization of the notion of m-pointed stable curves of a given genus, where the labels of the marked points are only determined up to the action of a group of permutations $Γ$. The classical moduli spaces and moduli stacks are generalized to this wider setting. Finally, an explicit construction of the new moduli stack of $m/Γ$-pointed stable curves as a quotient stack is given.
The aim of the present paper is to study the (abstract) Picard group and the Picard group scheme of the moduli stack of stable pointed curves over an arbitrary scheme. As a byproduct, we compute the Picard groups of the moduli stack of stable or smooth pointed curves over a field of characteristic different from two.
This is a note on calculating intersection numbers on moduli spaces of curves. A codimension 3 relation among tautological classes on the moduli space of genus 4 curves is given.
Using the geometry of an almost del Pezzo threefold, we show that the moduli space of genus $g$ one-pointed ineffective spin hyperelliptic curves is rational for every $g\geq 2$.
By the geometry of the 3-fold quadric we show that the coarse moduli space of genus g ineffective spin hyperelliptic curves with two marked points is a rational variety for every $g \geq 2$.
The aim of this paper is to study all the natural first steps of the minimal model program for the moduli space of stable pointed curves. We prove that they admit a modular interpretation and we study their geometric properties. As a particular case, we recover the first few Hassett-Keel log canonical models. As a by-product, we produce many birational morphisms from the moduli space of stable pointed curves to alternative modular projective compactifications of the moduli space of pointed curves.
We study the log canonical models of the moduli space MBar_{0,n} of pointed stable genus zero curves with respect to the standard log canonical divisors K+aD, where D denotes the boundary. In particular we show that, as a formal consequence of a conjecture by Fulton regarding the ample cone of MBar_{0,n}, these log canonical models are equal to certain of Hassett's weighted pointed curve spaces.
We construct the Mumford-Knudsen space of n pointed stable rational curves by a sequence of explicit blow-ups from the GIT quotient (P^1)^n//SL(2) with respect to the symmetric linearization O(1,...,1). The intermediate blown-up spaces turn out to be the moduli spaces of weighted pointed stable curves for suitable ranges of weights. As an application, we provide a new unconditional proof of M. Simpson's Theorem about the log canonical models of the Mumford-Knudsen space. We also give a basis of the Picard group of the moduli spaces of weighted pointed stable curves.
We determine the action of the product of symmetric groups on the cohomology of certain moduli of weighted pointed rational curves. The moduli spaces that we study are of stable rational curves with m+n marked points where the first m marked points are distinct from all the others where as the last n may coincide among themselves. We give a recipe for calculating the equivariant Poincaré polynomials and list them for small m and n.
This is the authors doctoral thesis written at the Humboldt-University Berlin. It contains material from the three separate papers: "On the Kodaira dimension of the moduli space of nodal curves", "On quotients of $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{g,n}$ by certain subgroups of $S_n$" and "The moduli space of hyperelliptic curves with marked points".
We prove that the moduli spaces A_3(D) of polarized abelian threefolds with polarizations of types D=(1,1,2), (1,2,2), (1,1,3) or (1,3,3) are unirational. The result is based on the study of families of simple coverings of elliptic curves of degree 2 or 3 and on the study of the corresponding period mappings associated with holomorphic differentials with trace 0. In particular we prove the unirationality of the Hurwitz space H_{3,A}(Y) which parameterizes simply branched triple coverings of an elliptic curve Y with determinants of the Tschirnhausen modules isomorphic to A^{-1}.
We prove that the moduli space ${\Cal M}_{g,n}$ of smooth curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points is rational for $g=6$ and $1 \le n \le 8$, and it is unirational for $g=8$ and $1 \le n \le 11$, $g=10$ and $1 \le n \le 3$, $g=12$ and $n = 1$.
We prove that, assuming the F-conjecture, the log canonical model of the pair $(\bar{M}_{0,n}, \sum a_i ψ_i)$ is the Hassett's moduli space of weighted pointed stable rational curves without any modification of weight coefficients. For the boundary weight cases, we prove that the birational model is the GIT quotient of the product of the projective lines. This is a generalization of Simpson's theorem for symmetric weight cases.
A weighted pointed curve consists of a nodal curve and a sequence of marked smooth points, each assigned a number between zero and one. A subset of the marked points may coincide if the sum of the corresponding weights is no greater than one. We construct moduli spaces for these objects using methods of the log minimal model program, and describe the induced birational morphisms between moduli spaces as the weights are varied. In the genus zero case, we explain the connection to Geometric Invariant Theory quotients of points in the projective line, and to compactifications of moduli spaces stu…
We introduce a new technique for proving positivity of certain divisor classes on $\bar{M}_{0,n}$ and its weighted variants. Our methods give an unconditional description of the spaces of symmetric weighted pointed rational curves as log canonical models of $\bar{M}_{0,n}$.
The dimension of the moduli space of smooth pointed curves with prescribed Weierstrass semigroup at the market point is computed for three families of symmetric semigroups of multiplicity six. We also collect the dimensions of such moduli spaces for all semigroups of genus not greater than seven. A question related to an improvement of a Deligne--Pinkham's bound is also formulated, suggesting that the positive graded part of the first module of the cotangent complex associated to a semigroup algebra is a missing invariant. The answer for this question is positive for all these moduli that we k…
We describe birational models and decide the rationality/unirationality of moduli spaces AA_{d} (and AA^{lev}_{d}) of (1,d)-polarized abelian surfaces (with canonical level structure, respectively) for small values of d. The projective lines identified in the rational/unirational moduli spaces correspond to pencils of abelian surfaces traced on nodal threefolds living naturally in the corresponding ambient projective spaces, and whose small resolutions are new Calabi-Yau threefolds with Euler characteristic zero.
We describe a natural open stratum in the moduli space of smooth real pointed quartic curves in the projective plane. This stratum consists of real isomorphism classes of pairs $(C, p)$ with $p$ a real point on the curve $C$ such that the tangent line at $p$ intersects the curve in two distinct points besides $p$. We will prove that this stratum consists of $20$ connected components. Each of these components has a real toric structure defined by an involution in the Weyl group of type $E_7$.
We give a combinatorial description of the rational cohomology of the moduli spaces of pointed genus 1 curves with $n$ marked points and level $N$ structures. More precisely, we explicitly describe the $E_2$ term of the Leray spectral sequence of the forgetful mapping $\EuScript{M}_{1,n}(N)\to\EuScript{M}_{1,1}(N)$ and show that the result is isomorphic to the rational cohomology of $\EuScript{M}_{1,n}(N)$ as a rational mixed Hodge structure equipped with an action of the symmetric group $\mathfrak{S}_n$. The classical moduli space $\EuScript{M}_{1,n}$ is the particular case N=1.
We show that certain structures and constructions of the Whitham theory, an essential part of the perturbation theory of soliton equations, can be instrumental in understanding the geometry of the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces with marked points. We use the ideas of the Whitham theory to define local coordinates and construct foliations on the moduli spaces. We use these constructions to give a new proof of the Diaz' bound on the dimension of complete subvarieties of the moduli spaces. Geometrically, we study the properties of meromorphic differentials with real periods, and their degenera…
We introduce the moduli space $R \bar{M}_{2k,l}$ of pointed real curves of genus zero and give its natural stratification. The strata of $R \bar{M}_{2k,l}$ correspond to real curves of genus zero with different degeneration types and are encoded by their dual trees with certain decorations. By using this stratification, we calculate the first Stiefel-Whitney class of $R \bar{M}_{2k,l}$ and construct the orientation double cover $R \widetilde{M}_{2k,l}$$ of $R \bar{M}_{2k,l}$.
We compute the Mori cone of curves of the moduli space \M_{g,n} of stable n-pointed curves of genus g in the case when g and n are relatively small. For instance, we show that for g<14 every curve in \M_g is numerically equivalent to an effective sum of 1-strata (loci of curves with 3g-4 nodes). We also prove that the nef cone of \M_{0,6} is composed of 11 natural subcones all contained in the convex hull of boundary classes. We apply this result to classify the fibrations of the moduli space of rational curves with n<7 marked points.
A curve on a projective variety is called movable if it belongs to an algebraic family of curves covering the variety. We consider when the cone of movable curves can be characterized without existence statements of covering families by studying the complete intersection cone on a family of blow-ups of complex projective space, including the moduli space of stable six-pointed rational curves, $\bar{M}_{0,6}$, and the permutohedral or Losev-Manin moduli space of four-pointed rational curves. Our main result is that the movable and complete intersection cones coincide for the toric members of th…
This is the first paper in the sequence devoted to derived category of moduli spaces of curves of genus $0$ with marked points. We develop several approaches to describe it equivariantly with respect to the action of the symmetric group permuting marked points. We construct an equivariant full exceptional collection on the Losev-Manin space which categorifies derangements.
We discuss topics on the geometry of the moduli space of curves. We present a short proof of the Harris-Mumford theorem on the Kodaira dimension of the moduli space which replaces the computations on the stack of admissible covers by a simple study of tautological Koszul bundles on M_g. We also present a streamlined self-contained account of Verra's recent work on the unirationality of M_g. Finally, we discuss a proof that the moduli space of curves of genus 22 is of general type. Written for Surveys in Differential Geometry.
The goal of the present paper is to construct a smooth compactification of the moduli superstack classifying pointed $\mathcal{N} =1$ SUSY (= $\text{SUSY}_1$) curves. This construction is based on the Abramovich-Jarvis-Chiodo compactification of the moduli stack classifying spin curves. First, we give a general framework of a theory of log superschemes (or more generally, log superstacks). Then, we introduce the notion of a pointed (stable) log twisted $\text{SUSY}_1$ curve; it may be thought of as a logarithmic and twisted generalization of the classical notion of a pointed $\text{SUSY}_1$ cu…
We consider the moduli space $\Hh_{g,n}$ of $n$-pointed smooth hyperelliptic curves of genus $g$. In order to get cohomological information we wish to make $\s_n$-equivariant counts of the numbers of points defined over finite fields of this moduli space. We find recurrence relations in the genus that these numbers fulfill. Thus, if we can make $\s_n$-equivariant counts of $\Hh_{g,n}$ for low genus, then we can do this for every genus. Information about curves of genus 0 and 1 is then found to be sufficient to compute the answers for $\Hh_{g,n}$ for all $g$ and for $n \leq 7$. These results ar…
Pandharipande-Pixton have used the geometry of the moduli space of stable quotients to produce relations between tautological Chow classes on the moduli space $M_g$ of smooth genus g curves. We study a natural extension of their methods to the boundary and more generally to Hassett's moduli spaces $\overline M_{g, w}$ of stable nodal curves with weighted marked points. Algebraic manipulation of these relations brings them into a Faber-Zagier type form. We show that they give Pixton's generalized FZ relations when all weights are one. As a special case, we give a formulation of FZ relations for…
Let X_n := \bar M_{0,n}, the moduli space of n-pointed stable genus zero curves, and let X_{n,m} be the quotient of X_n by the action of the symmetric group S_{n-m} on the last n-m marked points. The cones of effective divisors of X_{n,m}, m = 0,1,2, are calculated. Using this, upper bounds for the cones Mov(X_{n,m}) generated by divisors with moving linear systems are calculated, m = 0,1, along with the induced bounds on the cones of ample divisors of \bar M_g and \bar M_{g,1}. As an application, the cone of effective divisors of \bar M_{2,1} is analyzed in detail.
In this paper we study the moduli stack ${\mathcal U}_{1,n}^{ns}$ of curves of arithmetic genus 1 with n marked points, forming a nonspecial divisor. In arXiv:1511.03797 this stack was realized as the quotient of an explicit scheme $\widetilde{\mathcal U}_{1,n}^{ns}$, affine of finite type over ${\Bbb P}^{n-1}$, by the action of ${\Bbb G}_m^n$ . Our main result is an explicit description of the corresponding GIT semistable loci in $\widetilde{\mathcal U}_{1,n}^{ns}$. This allows us to identify some of the GIT quotients with some of the modular compactifications of ${\mathcal M}_{1,n}$ defined …
Motivated by several recent results on the geometry of the moduli spaces $\bar{\Cal M}_{g,n}$ of stable curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points, here we determine their birational structure for small values of $g$ and $n$ by exploiting suitable plane models of the general curve. More precisely, we show that ${\Cal M}_{g,n}$ is rational for $g=2$ and $1\le n\le 12$, $g=3$ and $1\le n\le 14$, $g=4$ and $1\le n\le 15$, $g=5$ and $1\le n\le 12$.
We prove uniruledness of some moduli spaces $\bar{M}_{g,n}$ of stable curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points using linear systems on nonsingular projective surfaces containing the general curve of genus $g$. Precisely we show that $\bar{M}_{g,n}$ is uniruled for $g=12$ and $n \leq 5$, $g=13$ and $n \leq 3$, $g=15$ and $n \leq 2$. We then prove that the pointed hyperelliptic locus $H_{g,n}$ is uniruled for $g \geq 2$ and $n \leq 4g+4$. In the last part we show that a nonsingular complete intersection surface does not carry a linear system containing the general curve of genus $g \geq 16$ an…
