We construct a two-level weighted TQFT whose structure coefficents are equivariant intersection numbers on moduli spaces of admissible covers. Such a structure is parallel (and strictly related) to the local Gromov-Witten theory of curves of Bryan-Pandharipande. We compute explicitly the theory using techniques of localization on moduli spaces of admissible covers of a parametrized projective line. The Frobenius Algebras we obtain are one parameter deformations of the class algebra of the symmetric group S_d. In certain special cases we are able to produce explicit closed formulas for such deformations in terms of the representation theory of S_d.
Admissible pairs $((\widetilde S, \widetilde L), \widetilde E)$ consisting of an $N$-dimensional projective scheme~$\widetilde S$ of certain class with a special ample invertible sheaf $\widetilde L$ and a locally free ${\cal O}_{\widetilde S}$-sheaf $\widetilde E$ are considered. An admissible pair can be produced in the procedure of a transformation (which is called a resolution) of a torsion-free coherent sheaf $E$ on a nonsingular $N$-dimensional projective algebraic variety $S$ to a locally free sheaf $\widetilde E$ on some projective scheme $\widetilde S$. Notions of stability and semist…
A morphism of the moduli functor of admissible semistable pairs to the Gieseker -- Maruyama moduli functor (of semistable coherent torsion-free sheaves) with the same Hilbert polynomial on the surface, is constructed. It is shown that these functors are isomorphic, and the moduli scheme for semistable admissible pairs $((\tilde S, \tilde L), \tilde E)$ is isomorphic to the Gieseker -- Maruyama moduli scheme. The considerations involve all components of moduli functors and corresponding moduli scheme as they exist.
We derive a formula for the virtual class of the moduli space of rubber maps to $[\mathbb{P}^1/G]$ pushed forward to the moduli space of stable maps to $BG$. As an application, we show that the Gromov-Witten theory of $[\mathbb{P}^1/G]$ relative to $0$ and $\infty$ are determined by known calculations.
We study Hodge Integrals on Moduli Spaces of Admissible Covers. Motivation for this work comes from Bryan and Pandharipande's recent work on the local GW theory of curves, where analogouos intersection numbers, computed on Moduli Spaces of Relative Stable Maps, are the structure coefficients for a Topological Quantum Field Theory. Admissible Covers provide an alternative compactification of the Moduli Space of Maps, that is smooth and doesn't contain boundary components of excessive dimension. A parallel, yet different, TQFT, can then be constructed. In this paper we compute, using localizatio…
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…
We show that the Poincaré bundle gives a fully faithful embedding from the derived category of a curve of sufficiently high genus into the derived category of its moduli space of bundles of rank $r$ with fixed determinant of degree 1. Moreover we show that a twist of the embedding, together with 2 exceptional line bundles, gives the start of a semi-orthogonal decomposition. This generalises results of Narasimhan and Fonarev-Kuznetsov, who embedded the derived category of a single copy of the curve, for rank 2.
A morphism of the moduli functor of admissible semistable pairs to the Gieseker -- Maruyama moduli functor (of semistable coherent torsion-free sheaves) with the same Hilbert polynomial on the surface, is constructed. It is shown that these functors are isomorphic, and main components of moduli scheme for semistable admissible pairs are isomorphic to main components of the Gieseker -- Maruyama moduli scheme
For singular metrics, there is no Quillen metric formalism on cohomology determinant. In this paper, we develop an admissible theory, with which the arithmetic Deligne-Riemann-Roch isometry can be established for singular metrics. As an application, we first study Weil-Petersson metrics and Takhtajan-Zograf metrics on moduli spaces of punctured Riemann surfaces, and then give a more geometric interpretation of our determinant metrics in terms of Selberg zeta functions. We end this paper by proposing an arithmetic factorization for Weil-Petersson metrics, cuspidal metrics and Selberg zeta funct…
We explicitly describe the KSBA/Hacking compactification of a moduli space of log surfaces of Picard rank 2. The space parametrizes log pairs $(S, D)$ where $S$ is a degeneration of $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$ and $D \subset S$ is a degeneration of a curve of class $(3,3)$. We prove that the compactified moduli space is a smooth Deligne--Mumford stack with 4 boundary components. We relate it to the moduli space of genus 4 curves; we show that it compactifies the blow-up of the hyperelliptic locus. We also relate it to a compactification of the Hurwitz space of triple coverings of $\math…
The moduli space of stable relative maps to the projective line combines features of stable maps and admissible covers. We prove all standard Gromov-Witten classes on these moduli spaces of stable relative maps have tautological push-forwards to the moduli space of curves. In particular, the fundamental classes of all moduli spaces of admissible covers push-forward to tautological classes. Consequences for the tautological rings of the moduli spaces of curves include methods for generating new relations, uniform derivations of the socle and vanishing statements of the Gorenstein conjectures fo…
The purpose of this paper is to give a twisted version of the Eynard-Orantin topological recursion by a 2D Topological Quantum Field Theory. We define a kernel for a 2D TQFT and use an algebraic definition for a topological recursion to define how to twist a standard topological recursion by a 2D TQFT. The A-model side enumerative problem consists of counting cell graphs where in addition vertices are decorated by elements in a Frobenius algebra, and which are a twisted version of the generalized Catalan numbers of Dumitrescu-Mulase-Safnuk-Sorkin. We show that the function which counts these d…
The purpose of the present paper is to develop the enumerative geometry of dormant $G$-opers for a semisimple algebraic group $G$. In the present paper, we construct a compact moduli stack admitting a perfect obstruction theory by introducing the notion of a dormant faithful twisted $G$-oper (or a "$G$-do'per", for short). The resulting virtual fundamental class induces a semisimple $2$d TQFT (= $2$-dimensional topological quantum field theory) counting the number of $G$-do'pers. This $2$d TQFT gives an analogue of the Witten-Kontsevich theorem describing the intersection numbers of psi classe…
We study the relationship between tropical and classical Hurwitz moduli spaces. Following recent work of Abramovich, Caporaso and Payne, we outline a tropicalization for the moduli space of generalized Hurwitz covers of an arbitrary genus curve. Our approach is to appeal to the geometry of admissible covers, which compactify the Hurwitz scheme. We define and construct a moduli space of tropical admissible covers, and study its relationship with the skeleton of the Berkovich analytification of the classical space of admissible covers. We use techniques from non-archimedean geometry to show that…
We develop an explicit skein theoretical algorithm to compute the Alexander polynomial of a 3-manifold from a surgery presentation employing the methods used in the construction of quantum invariants of 3-manifolds. As a prerequisite we establish and prove a rather unexpected equivalence between the topological quantum field theory constructed by Frohman and Nicas using the intersection homology of U(1)-representation varieties on the one side and the combinatorially constructed Hennings-TQFT based on the quasitriangular Hopf algebra ${\cal N}=\Z/2\ltimes \ext *\R^2$ on the other side. We find…
A morphism of the reduced Gieseker -- Maruyama moduli functor (of semistable coherent torsion-free sheaves) to the reduced moduli functor of admissible semistable pairs with the same Hilbert polynomial, is constructed. It is shown that main components of reduced moduli scheme for semistable admissible pairs ((\tilde S, \tilde L), \tilde E) are isomorphic to main components of reduced Gieseker -- Maruyama moduli scheme.
A connection between moduli spaces of algebro-geometric objects and moduli spaces of polyhedral objects has been under investigation in recent years. Loosely speaking, the skeleton of an algebro-geometric moduli space is expressed as the modul space of the skeleta of the objects it parametrizes. The connection is based on the combinatorial properties of the boundary of the algebro-geometric moduli spaces. This paper overviews this topic with focus on moduli of curves, admissible covers, Jacobians and their Neron models.
Hodge classes on the moduli space of admissible covers with monodromy group G are associated to irreducible representations of G. We evaluate all linear Hodge integrals over moduli spaces of admissible covers with abelian monodromy in terms of multiplication in an associated wreath group algebra. In case G is cyclic and the representation is faithful, the evaluation is in terms of double Hurwitz numbers. In case G is trivial, the formula specializes to the well-known result of Ekedahl-Lando-Shapiro-Vainshtein for linear Hodge integrals over the moduli space of curves in terms of single Hurwitz…
By associating to a curve C of genus g=2k and a pencil of degree d=k+1 the so-called trace curve (resp. the reduced trace curve) we define a rational map from the Hurwitz space of admissible covers of genus g=2k and degree d=k+1 to a moduli space of stable curves. We study the induced map between the divisor class groups of these moduli spaces of curves.
We introduce moduli spaces of quasi-admissible hyperelliptic covers with at worst A and D singularities. The stability conditions for these moduli spaces depend on two parameters describing allowable singularities. By varying these parameters, we interpolate between the stacks of stable limits of A and D singularities and the quotients of the versal deformation spaces of A and D singularities by a natural $\mathbb{G}_m$ action.
We compute the degree of Hurwitz-Hodge classes $λ_1^e$ on one dimensional moduli spaces of cyclic admissible covers of the projective line. We also compute the degree of the the first Chern class of the Hodge bundle $λ_1$ for all one dimensional moduli spaces. In higher dimension, we express the divisor class $λ_1$ as a linear combination of $ψ$ classes and boundary strata.
We calculate the cycle class of the Hurwitz divisor $D_2$ on the moduli space of stable curves of genus $g=2k$ given by the degree $k+1$ covers of the projective line with simple ramification points, two of which lie in the same fibre. We also study some aspects of the geometry of the natural map of the Hurwitz space of admissible covers of degree $k+1$ and genus $2k$ to the moduli space of stable curves of genus $2k$.
The main purpose of this paper is to prove the existence of the moduli space parameterizing the embedded curve singularities of $(k^N,0)$ with an admissible Hilbert polynomial and to study its basic properties.
In this paper we describe explicit generating functions for a large class of Hurwitz-Hodge integrals. These are integrals of tautological classes on moduli spaces of admissible covers, a (stackily) smooth compactification of the Hurwitz schemes. Admissible covers and their tautological classes are interesting mathematical objects on their own, but recently they have proved to be a useful tool for the study of the tautological ring of the moduli space of curves, and the orbifold Gromov-Witten theory of DM stacks. Our main tool is Atiyah-Bott localization: its underlying philosophy is to transla…
The moduli space of twisted stable maps into the stack $B(\Z/m\Z)^2$ carries a natural $S_n$-action and so its cohomology may be decomposed into irreducible $S_n$-representations. Working over $\Spec \Z[1/m]$ we show that the alternating part of the cohomology of one of its connected components is exactly the cohomology associated to cusp forms for $Γ(m)$. In particular this offers an alternative to Scholl's construction of the Chow motive associated to such cusp forms. This answers in the affirmative a question of Manin on whether one can replace the Kuga-Sato varieties used by Scholl with so…
We extend the theory of tautological classes on moduli spaces of stable curves to the more general setting of moduli spaces of admissible Galois covers of curves, introducing the so-called H-tautological ring. The main new feature is the existence of restriction-corestriction morphisms remembering intermediate quotients of Galois covers, which are a rich source of new classes. In particular, our new framework includes classes of Harris-Mumford admissible covers on moduli spaces of curves, which are known in some (and speculatively many more) examples to lie outside the usual tautological ring.…
This note is but a research announcement, summarizing and explaining results proven and detailed in forthcoming papers. When one studies families of objects over curves, and the objects are parametrized by a Deligne-Mumford stack M, then the families are equivalent to morphisms of curves into M. In order to have complete moduli for such families, one needs to compactify the stack of stable maps into M. It turns out that in the boundary, the curve must acquire extra structure and you'd better read the paper to see what that structure is. Applications to fibered surfaces (see math.AG/9804097), a…
The construction for nonreduced projective moduli scheme of semistable admissible pairs is performed. We establish the relation of this moduli scheme with reduced moduli scheme built up in the previous article and prove that nonreduced moduli scheme contains an open subscheme which is isomorphic to moduli scheme of semistable vector bundles.
In a previous paper, the authors proved that the Prym variety of any non-cyclic etale triple cover of a smooth curve of genus 2 is a Jacobian variety of dimension 2. This gives a map from the moduli space of such covers to the moduli space of Jacobian varieties of dimension 2. We extend this map to a proper map of a certain moduli space of admissible $S_3$-covers of genus 7 to the moduli space of principally polarized abelian surfaces. The main result is that this map is finite surjective of degree 10.
For any finite group G we define the moduli space of pointed admissible G-covers and the concept of a G-equivariant cohomological field theory (G-CohFT), which, when G is the trivial group, reduce to the moduli space of stable curves and a cohomological field theory (CohFT), respectively. We prove that by taking the "quotient" by G, a G-CohFT reduces to a CohFT. We also prove that a G-CohFT contains a G-Frobenius algebra, a G-equivariant generalization of a Frobenius algebra, and that the "quotient" by G agrees with the obvious Frobenius algebra structure on the space of G-invariants, after re…
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 study the enumerative geometry of the moduli space R_g of Prym varieties of dimension g-1 (also known as the space of admissible double covers). Our main result is that the compactification of R_g is of general type as soon as g>13. We achieve this by computing the class of two types of cycles on R_g: one defined in terms of Koszul cohomology of Prym curves, the other defined in terms of Raynaud theta divisors associated to certain vector bundles on curves. We formulate a Prym-Green conjecture on syzygies of Prym-canonical curves. In the appendix we show that even though R_g has non-canonic…
Consider genus g curves that admit degree d covers to an elliptic curve simply branched at 2g-2 points. Vary a branch point and the locus of such covers forms a one-parameter family W. We investigate the geometry of W by using admissible covers to study its slope, genus and components. The results can also be applied to study slopes of effective divisors on the moduli space of genus g curves.
We describe the modular operad structure on the moduli spaces of pointed stable curves equipped with an admissible $G$-cover. To do this we are forced to introduce the notion of an operad colored not by a set but by the objects of a category. This construction interpolates in a sense between `framed' and `colored' versions of operads; we hope that it will be of independent interest. An algebra over this operad is the same thing as a $G$-equivariant CohFT, as defined by Jarvis, Kaufmann and Kimura. We prove that the (orbifold) Gromov--Witten invariants of global quotients $[X/G]$ give examples …
We construct certain orbifold compactifications of the moduli stack of pointed stable curves over $\mathbb C$ and study their fundamental groups by means of their quantum representations. This enables to construct interesting Kähler groups and to settle most of the candidates for a counter-example to the Shafarevich conjecture on holomorphic convexity proposed in 1998 by Bogomolov and Katzarkov, using TQFT representations of the mapping class groups.
Fix $n\geq 5$ general points $p_1, \dots, p_n\in\mathbb{P}^1$, and a weight vector $\mathcal{A} = (a_{1}, \dots, a_{n})$ of real numbers $0 \leq a_{i} \leq 1$. Consider the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{\mathcal{A}}$ parametrizing rank two parabolic vector bundles with trivial determinant on $\big(\mathbb{P}^1, p_1,\dots , p_n\big)$ which are semistable with respect to $\mathcal{A}$. Under some conditions on the weights, we determine and give a modular interpretation for the automorphism group of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{\mathcal{A}}$. It is isomorphic to $\left(\frac{\mathbb{Z}}{2\mathbb{Z…
For any finite abelian group G, we study the moduli space of abelian $G$-covers of elliptic curves, in particular identifying the irreducible components of the moduli space. We prove that, in the totally ramified case, the moduli space has trivial rational Picard group, and it is birational to the moduli space M_{1,n}, where n is the number of branch points. In the particular case of moduli of bielliptic curves, we also prove that the boundary divisors are a basis of the rational Picard group of the admissible covers compactification of the moduli space. Our methods are entirely algebro-geomet…
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 main purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual approach to understanding the extension of the Prym map from the space of admissible double covers of stable curves to different toroidal compactifications of the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties. By separating the combinatorial problems from the geometric aspects we can reduce this to the computation of certain monodromy cones. In this way we not only shed new light on the extension results of Alexeev, Birkenhake, Hulek, and Vologodsky for the second Voronoi toroidal compactification, but we also apply this to ot…
In this paper we study the slope stratification on the good reduction of the type C family Shimura varieties. We show that there is an open dense subset $U$ of the moduli space such that any point in $U$ can be deformed to a point with a given lower {\it admissible} Newton polygon. For the Siegel moduli spaces, this is obtained by F. Oort which plays an important role in his proof of the strong Grothendieck conjecture concerning the slope stratification. We also investigate the $p$-divisible groups and their isogeny classes arising from the abelian varieties in question.
The moduli space $M$ of semi-stable rank 2 bundles with trivial determinant over a complex curve carries involutions naturally associated to 2-torsion points on the Jacobian of the curve. For every lift of a 2-torsion point to a 4-torsion point, we define a lift of the involution to the determinant line bundle $Ł$. We obtain an explicit presentation of the group generated by these lifts in terms of the order 4 Weil pairing. This is related to the triple intersections of the components of the fixed point sets in $M$, which we also determine completely using the order 4 Weil pairing. The lifted …
In this paper we provide an explicit construction of a $distinctive$ multiple Dirichlet series associated to products of quadratic Dirichlet L-series, which we believe should be tightly connected to a generalized metaplectic Whittaker function on the double cover of a Kac-Moody group. To do so, we first impose a set of axioms, independent of any group of functional equations, which the aforementioned object should satisfy. As a consequence, we deduce that the coefficients of the $p$-parts of the multiple Dirichlet series satisfy certain recurrence relations. These relations lead to a family of…
In this series of papers, we investigate a new anabelian phenomenon of curves over algebraically closed fields of positive characteristic. Let $\overline M_{g, n}$ be the moduli space of curves of type $(g, n)$ over $\overline {\mathbb{F}}_p$. We introduce a topological space $\overline Π_{g, n}$ which can be determined group-theoretically from admissible fundamental groups of pointed stable curves of type $(g, n)$. By introducing a certain equivalence relation $\sim_{fe}$ on the underlying topological space $|\overline M_{g, n}|$ of $\overline M_{g, n}$, we obtain a topological space $\overli…
We establish an implication between two long-standing open problems in complex dynamics. The roots of the $n$-th Gleason polynomial $G_n\in\mathbb{Q}[c]$ comprise the $0$-dimensional moduli space of quadratic polynomials with an $n$-periodic critical point. $\mathrm{Per}_n(0)$ is the $1$-dimensional moduli space of quadratic rational maps on $\mathbb{P}^1$ with an $n$-periodic critical point. We show that if $G_n$ is irreducible over $\mathbb{Q}$, then $\mathrm{Per}_n(0)$ is irreducible over $\mathbb{C}$. To do this, we exhibit a $\mathbb{Q}$-rational smooth point on a projective completion of…
We consider the extension of classical 2-dimensional topological quantum field theories to Klein topological quantum field theories which allow unorientable surfaces. We approach this using the theory of modular operads by introducing a new operad governing associative algebras with involution. This operad is Koszul and we identify the dual dg operad governing A-infinity algebras with involution in terms of Mobius graphs which are a generalisation of ribbon graphs. We then generalise open topological conformal field theories to open Klein topological conformal field theories and give a generat…
Hassett constructed a class of modular compactifications of the moduli space of pointed curves by adding weights to the marked points. This leads to a natural wall and chamber decomposition of the domain of admissible weights where the moduli space and universal family remain constant inside a chamber, and may change upon crossing a wall. The goal of this paper is to count the number of chambers in this decomposition. We relate these chambers to a class of boolean functions known as linear threshold functions (LTFs), and discover a subclass of LTFs which are in bijection with the chambers. Usi…
Given an $n$-tuple of positive real numbers $α$ we consider the hyperpolygon space $X(α)$, the hyperkähler quotient analogue to the Kähler moduli space of polygons in $\mathbb{R}^3$. We prove the existence of an isomorphism between hyperpolygon spaces and moduli spaces of stable, rank-$2$, holomorphically trivial parabolic Higgs bundles over $\mathbb{C} \mathbb{P}^1$ with fixed determinant and trace-free Higgs field. This isomorphism allows us to prove that hyperpolygon spaces $X(α)$ undergo an elementary transformation in the sense of Mukai as $α$ crosses a wall in the space of its admissible…
