In this note we give a new, natural construction of a compactification of the stack of smooth r-spin curves, which we call the stack of stable twisted $r$-spin curves. This stack is identified with a special case of a stack of twisted stable maps of Abramovich and Vistoli. Realizations in terms of admissible G_m-spaces and Q-line bundles are given as well. The infinitesimal structure of this stack is described in a relatively straightforward manner, similar to that of usual stable curves.
We construct representable morphisms from the stacks of stable twisted r-spin curves to the stacks of stable r-spin curves, and show that they are isomorphisms. Many delicate features of r-spin curves, including torsion free sheaves with power maps, arise as simple by-products of twisted spin curves. Various constructions, such as the d bar-operator of Seeley and Singer and Witten's cohomology class go through without complications in the setting of twisted spin curves.
Motivated by the relation between (twisted) K3 surfaces and special cubic fourfolds, we construct moduli spaces of polarized twisted K3 surfaces of any fixed degree and order. We do this by mimicking the construction of the moduli space of untwisted polarized K3 surfaces as a quotient of a bounded symmetric domain.
We prove a canonical identifications of the spaces of generalized theta functions on the moduli spaces of anti-invariant vector bundles in the ramified case and the conformal blocks associated to twisted Kac-Moody affine algebras.
We construct the moduli of twisted sheaves on a projective variety. Then we generalize known results on the moduli space of usual sheaves on a K3 surface to the twisted case. Thus we consider the non-emptyness, the deformation type and the Fourier-Mukai transformation. As an application of our results, Daniel Huybrechts and Paolo Stellari prove Caldararu's conjecture.
A $\mathrm{U}(p,q)$-Higgs bundle on a Riemann surface (twisted by a line bundle) consists of a pair of holomorphic vector bundles, together with a pair of (twisted) maps between them. Their moduli spaces depend on a real parameter $α$. In this paper we study wall crossing for the moduli spaces of $α$-polystable twisted $\mathrm{U}(p,q)$-Higgs bundles. Our main result is that the moduli spaces are birational for a certain range of the parameter and we deduce irreducibility results using known results on Higgs bundles. Quiver bundles and the Hitchin-Kobayashi correspondence play an essential rol…
We construct a smooth Artin stack parameterizing the stable weighted curves of genus one with twisted fields and prove that it is isomorphic to the blowup stack of the moduli of genus one weighted curves studied by Hu and Li. This leads to a blowup-free construction of Vakil-Zinger's desingularization of the moduli of genus one stable maps to projective spaces. This construction provides the cornerstone of the theory of stacks with twisted fields, which is thoroughly studied in arXiv:2005.03384 and leads to a blowup-free resolution of the stable map moduli of genus two.
Hausel and Rodriguez-Villegas conjectured that the intersection form on the moduli space of stable PGL_n-Higgs bundles on a curve vanishes if the degree is coprime to n. In this note we prove this conjecture. Along the way we show that moduli spaces of stable chains are irreducible for stability parameters larger than the stability condition induced form stability of Higgs bundles.
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…
In this paper we introduce the stack of polarized twisted conics and we use it to give a new point of view on $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_2$. In particular, we present a new and independent approach to the computation of the integral Chow ring of $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_2$, previously determined by Eric Larson.
The moduli space of canonical divisors (with prescribed zeros and poles) on nonsingular curves is not compact since the curve may degenerate. We define a proper moduli space of twisted canonical divisors in the moduli space of Deligne-Mumford stable pointed curves which includes the space of canonical divisors as an open subset. The theory leads to geometric/combinatorial constraints on the closures of the moduli spaces of canonical divisors. In case the differentials have at least one pole (the strictly meromorphic case), the moduli spaces of twisted canonical divisors on genus g curves are o…
The enumerative geometry of r-th roots of line bundles is the subject of Witten's conjecture and occurs in the calculation of Gromov-Witten invariants of orbifolds. It requires the definition of the suitable compact moduli stack and the generalization of the standard techniques from the theory of moduli of stable curves. In math.AG/0603687, we construct a compact stack by describing the notion of stability in the context of twisted curves. In this paper, by working with stable twisted curves, we extend Mumford's formula for the Chern character of the Hodge bundle to the direct image of the uni…
We study moduli of semistable twisted sheaves on smooth proper morphisms of algebraic spaces. In the case of a relative curve or surface, we prove results on the structure of these spaces. For curves, they are essentially isomorphic to spaces of semistable vector bundles. In the case of surfaces, we show (under a mild hypothesis on the twisting class) that the spaces are asympotically geometrically irreducible, normal, generically smooth, and l.c.i. over the base. We also develop general tools necessary for these results: the theory of associated points and purity of sheaves on Artin stacks, t…
We use the theory of twisted stable maps to Deligne-Mumford stacks to construct compactifications of the moduli space of pairs $(X \to C, S + F)$ where $X \to C$ is a fibered surface, $S$ is a sum of sections, $F$ is a sum of marked fibers, and $(X, S + F)$ is a stable pair in the sense of the minimal model program. This generalizes the work of Abramovich-Vistoli, who compactified the moduli space of fibered surfaces without marked fibers. Furthermore, we compare our compactification to Alexeev's space of stable maps and the KSBA compactification of stable pairs. As an application, we describe…
In this note we extend the dimension theory for the spaces $\widetilde{\mathcal H}_g^k(μ)$ of twisted $k$-differentials defined by Farkas and Pandharipande in [FP15] to the case $k>1$. In particular, we show that the intersection $\widetilde{\mathcal H}_g^k(μ) \cap \mathcal{M}_{g,n}$ is a union of smooth components of the expected dimensions for all $k\geq 0$. We also extend a conjectural formula from [FP15] for a weighted fundamental class of $\widetilde{\mathcal H}_g^k(μ)$ and provide evidence in low genus.
We revisit the work of Lehn-Lehn-Sorger-van Straten on twisted cubic curves in a cubic fourfold not containing a plane in terms of moduli spaces. We show that the blow-up $Z'$ along the cubic of the irreducible holomorphic symplectic eightfold $Z$, described by the four authors, is isomorphic to an irreducible component of a moduli space of Gieseker stable torsion sheaves or rank three torsion free sheaves. For a very general such cubic fourfold, we show that $Z$ is isomorphic to a connected component of a moduli space of tilt-stable objects in the derived category and to a moduli space of Bri…
The cherry on top of this stacky paper is the following: for any g>1 we give a finite group G such that the moduli space of connected admissible G-covers of genus g is a smooth, fine moduli space, which is a Galois cover of the moduli space of stable curves. The proof relies on methods introduced by Looijenga and Pikaart-De Jong, and on the theory of twisted G-covers, a theory announced without proofs in math.AG/9811059, section 3, and developed in the first few sections of this paper. This includes a moduli description of the normalization of the Harris-Mumford space of admissible covers, and…
In this paper, we consider the preservation of stability by using the notion of Twisted stability. As applications, (1) we show that moduli spaces of vector bundles on K3 and abelian surfaces are irreducible, (2) we compute Hodge polynomials of some moduli spaces of vector bundles on Enriques surfaces and on elliptic surfaces with a section.
We study stacks of slope-semistable twisted sheaves on orbisurfaces with projective coarse spaces and prove that in certain cases they have many of the asymptotic properties enjoyed by the moduli of slope-semistable sheaves on smooth projective surfaces.
We provide a definition of Tanaka-Thomas's Vafa-Witten invariants for étale gerbes over smooth projective surfaces using the moduli spaces of $μ_r$-gerbe twisted sheaves and Higgs sheaves. Twisted sheaves and their moduli are naturally used to study the period-index theorem for the corresponding $μ_r$-gerbe in the Brauer group of the surfaces. Deformation and obstruction theory of the twisted sheaves and Higgs sheaves behave like general sheaves and Higgs sheaves. We define virtual fundamental classes on the moduli spaces and define the twisted Vafa-Witten invariants using virtual localization…
Witten's gauged linear sigma model [Wi1] is one of the universal frameworks or structures that lie behind stringy dualities. Its A-twisted moduli space at genus 0 case has been used in the Mirror Principle [L-L-Y] that relates Gromov-Witten invariants and mirror symmetry computations. In this paper the A-twisted moduli stack for higher genus curves is defined and systematically studied. It is proved that such a moduli stack is an Artin stack. For genus 0, it has the A-twisted moduli space of [M-P] as the coarse moduli space. The detailed proof of the regularity of the collapsing morphism by Ju…
We generalize the classical Beauville-Narasimhan-Ramanan correspondence to the case of parabolic Higgs bundles with regular singularities and Higgs $V$-bundles. Using this correspondence along with Bott-Morse theoretic techniques we provide an exact component count for moduli spaces of maximal parabolic $\text{Sp}\left( 2n,\mathbb{R} \right)$-Higgs bundles with fixed parabolic structure.
The universal curve p:C->\Mbar over the moduli space \Mbar of stable r-spin maps to a target Kähler manifold X carries a universal spinor bundle L->C. Therefore the moduli space \Mbar itself carries a natural K-theory class Rp_*L. We introduce a twisted r-spin Gromov-Witten potential of X enriched with Chern characters of Rp_*L. We show that the twisted potential can be reconstructed from the ordinary r-spin Gromov-Witten potential of X via an operator that assumes a particularly simple form in Givental's quantization formalism.
Abramovich, Corti and Vistoli have studied modular compactifications of stacks of curves equipped with abelian level structures arising as substacks of the stack of twisted stable maps into the classifying stack of a finite group, provided the order of the group is invertible on the base scheme. Recently Abramovich, Olsson and Vistoli extended the notion of twisted stable maps to allow arbitrary base schemes, where the target is a tame stack, not necessarily Deligne-Mumford. We use this to extend the results of Abramovich, Corti and Vistoli to the case of elliptic curves with level structures …
We prove that the Fano variety of lines of a generic cubic fourfold containing a plane is isomorphic to a moduli space of twisted stable complexes on a K3 surface. On the other hand, we show that the Fano varieties are always birational to moduli spaces of twisted stable coherent sheaves on a K3 surface. The moduli spaces of complexes and of sheaves are related by wall-crossing in the derived category of twisted sheaves on the corresponding K3 surface.
The Hilbert scheme of point modules was introduced by Artin-Tate-Van den Bergh to study non-commutative graded algebras. The key tool is the construction of a map from the algebra to a twisted ring on this Hilbert scheme. In this paper, we study moduli stacks of more general "fat" point modules, and show that there is a similar map to a twisted ring associated to the stack. This is used to provide a sufficient criterion for a non-commutative projective surface to be birationally PI. It is hoped that such a criterion will be useful in understanding Mike Artin's conjecture on the birational clas…
We study the geometry of some moduli spaces of twisted sheaves on K3 surfaces. In particular we introduce induced automorphisms from a K3 surface on moduli spaces of twisted sheaves on this K3 surface. As an application we prove the unirationality of moduli spaces of irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds of $K3^{[2]}$-type admitting non symplectic involutions with invariant lattices $U(2)\oplus D_4(-1)$ or $U(2)\oplus E_8(-2)$. This complements the results obtained in [Mongardi and Wandel 2015], [Bossiere et al 2016], and the results from [arXiv:1603.00403] about the geometry of IHS fou…
In general, if M is a moduli space of stable sheaves on X, there is a unique alpha in the Brauer group of M such that a pi_M^* alpha^{-1}-twisted universal sheaf exists on X times M. In this paper we study the situation when X and M are K3 surfaces, and we identify alpha in terms of Mukai's map between the cohomology of X and of M (defined by means of a quasi-universal sheaf). We prove that the derived category of sheaves on X and the derived category of alpha-twisted sheaves on M are equivalent. This suggests a conjecture which describes, in terms of Hodge isometries of lattices, when derived…
We study the algebraic geometry of twisted Higgs bundles of cyclic type along complex curves. These objects, which generalize ordinary cyclic Higgs bundles, can be identified with representations of a cyclic quiver in a twisted category of coherent sheaves. Referring to the Hitchin fibration, we produce a fibre-wise geometric description of the locus of such representations within the ambient twisted Higgs moduli space. When the genus is 0, we produce a concrete geometric identification of the moduli space as a vector bundle over an associated (twisted) A-type quiver variety; we count the numb…
Let $X$ be a smooth complex projective curve of genus $g$ and let $L$ be a line bundle on $X$ with $\mathrm{deg}\,L>0$. Let $\mathbf{M}$ be the moduli space of semistable rank 2 $L$-twisted Higgs bundles with trivial determinant on $X$. Let $\mathbf{M}_{X}$ be the moduli space of stable rank 2 $L$-twisted Higgs bundles with determinant $\mathcal{O}(-x)$ for some $x\in X$ on $X$. We construct a cycle in the product of a stack of rational maps from nonsingular curves to $\mathbf{M}_{X}$ and $\mathrm{Pic}^{2\mathrm{deg}\,L}(X)$ by using Hecke modifications of a stable $L$-twisted Higgs bundle in …
The object of this paper is the notion of r-spin structure: a line bundle whose r-th power is isomorphic to the canonical bundle. Over the moduli functor M_g of smooth genus-$g$ curves, $r$-spin structures form a finite torsor under the group of r-torsion line bundles. Over the moduli functor Mbar_g of stable curves, r-spin structures form an 'etale stack, but the finiteness and the torsor structure are lost. In the present work, we show how this bad picture can be definitely improved simply by placing the problem in the category of Abramovich and Vistoli's twisted curves. First, we find that …
This paper presents two kinds of division polynomials for twisted Edwards curves. Their chief property is that they characterise the $n$-torsion points of a given twisted Edwards curve. We also present results concerning the coefficients of these polynomials, which may aid computation.
A recent paper of Bresciani and Vistoli studies fields of moduli using residual gerbes. One of their applications is to twisted forms of quotient singularities. We discuss a direct approach to automorphisms and twisted forms, which also works in many wildly ramified cases.
Recent work on the log minimal model program for the moduli space of curves, as well as past results of Caporaso, Pandharipande, and Simpson motivate an investigation of compactifications of the universal moduli space of slope semi-stable vector bundles over moduli spaces of curves arising in the Hassett-Keel program. Our main result is the construction of a universal moduli space of slope semi-stable sheaves which compactifies the moduli space of vector bundles over the moduli space of pseudo-stable curves.
This paper presents division polynomials for twisted Edwards curves. Their chief property is that they characterise the $n$-torsion points of a given twisted Edwards curve. We also present results concerning the coefficients of these polynomials, which may aid computation.
We give a log-geometric description of the space of twisted canonical divisors constructed by Farkas--Pandharipande. In particular, we introduce the notion of a principal rubber $k$-log-canonical divisor, and we study its moduli space. It is a proper Deligne--Mumford stack admitting a perfect obstruction theory whose virtual fundamental cycle is of dimension $2g-3+n$. In the so-called strictly meromorphic case with $k=1$, the moduli space is of the expected dimension and the push-forward of its virtual fundamental cycle to the moduli space of stable curves equals the weighted fundamental class…
We find all K-polystable smooth Fano threefolds that can be obtained as blowup of projective space along the disjoint union of a twisted cubic curve and a line.
This paper studies the moduli space of stable surfaces of general type. The moduli space component containing the moduli point of a product of smooth curves of general type is proved to be the product of the moduli spaces of the curves, unless the curves have the same genus, in which case it is the symmetric product of the moduli space of curves. This result follows from a study of deformation theory of products and the singularities of products of nodal curves (namely that the product of nodal curves has semilogcanonical singularities).
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.
We contribute to the foundations of tropical geometry with a view towards formulating tropical moduli problems, and with the moduli space of curves as our main example. We propose a moduli functor for the moduli space of curves and show that it is representable by a geometric stack over the category of rational polyhedral cones. In this framework the natural forgetful morphisms between moduli spaces of curves with marked points function as universal curves. Our approach to tropical geometry permits tropical moduli problems---moduli of curves or otherwise---to be extended to logarithmic schemes…
We construct the generic component of the moduli space of the germs of Legendrian curves with generic plane projection topologicaly equivalent to a curve y^n = x^m, (n,m)=1.
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 $\cG \to \cX$.
