Given a moduli problem with a nice coarse moduli space, which is the most intrinsic and natural divisor on this moduli space? We describe a general method of constructing effective divisors on a large class of moduli spaces using the syzygies of the parametrized objects. In this paper we treat the case of the moduli space of curves and we compute the slope of a doubly infinite sequence of Koszul divisors on M_g. We present a single formula which apart from giving myriads of new counterexamples to the Harris-Morrison Slope Conjecture it also encodes virtually all interesting divisor class calculations on M_g. In particular our formula specializes to earlier results due to Harris-Mumford (the case of the Brill-Noether divisors), Eisenbud-Harris (Giseker-Petri divisors), Khosla as well as to our earlier counterexamples to the Slope Conjecture obtained using K3 surfaces and Hurwitz schemes. We also describe five ways of constructing Koszul divisors on moduli spaces of pointed curves. As an application, we improve most of Logan's results on the Kodaira type of M_{g,n}.
We discuss recent progress on syzygies of curves, including proofs of Green's and Gonality Conjectures as well as applications of Koszul cycles to the study of the birational geometry of various moduli spaces of curves. We prove a number of new results, including a complete solution to Green's Conjecture for arbitrary hexagonal curves. Finally, we propose several new conjectures on syzygies, including a Prym-Green conjecture for l-roots of trivial bundles as well as a strong Maximal Rank Conjecture for generic curves. To appear in the Proceedings of Clay Mathematical Institute.
We prove relations among the classes of certain divisors on the moduli spaces of curves with marked points, generalizing the Brill-Noether Ray Theorem of Eisenbud and Harris.
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…
We consider moduli spaces of Azumaya algebras on K3 surfaces and construct an example. In some cases we show a derived equivalence which corresponds to a derived equivalence between twisted sheaves. We prove if $A$ and $A'$ are Morita equivalent Azumaya algebras of degree $r$ then $2r$ divides $c_2(A) - c_2(A')$. In particular this implies that if $A$ is an Azumaya algebra on a K3 surface and $c_2(A)$ is within $2r$ of its minimal bound then the moduli stack of Azumaya algebras with the same underlying gerbe, if non empty, is a proper algebraic space.
We study birational projective models of ${\mathcal M}_{2,2}$ obtained from the moduli space of curves with nonspecial divisors. We describe geometrically which singular curves appear in these models and show that one of them is obtained by blowing down the Weierstrass divisor in the moduli stack of ${\mathcal Z}$-stable curves $\overline{\mathcal M}_{2,2}({\mathcal Z})$ defined by Smyth. As a corollary, we prove projectivity of the coarse moduli space $\overline{M}_{2,2}({\mathcal Z})$.
We prove that the moduli b-divisor of an lc-trivial fibration from a log canonical pair is log abundant. The result follows from a theorem on the restriction of the moduli b-divisor, based on a theory of lc-trivial morphisms, which allows us to treat $\mathbb{R}$-divisors and proper morphisms possibly with disconnected fibres. We also prove a theorem on extending a finite cover over a closed subvariety to that over a variety in arbitrary characteristic.
In this note, we extend work of Farkas and Rimányi on applying quadric rank loci to finding divisors of small slope on the moduli space of curves by instead considering all divisorial conditions on the hypersurfaces of a fixed degree containing a projective curve. This gives rise to a large family of virtual divisors on $\overline{\mathcal{M}_g}$. We determine explicitly which of these divisors are candidate counterexamples to the Slope Conjecture. The potential counterexamples exist on $\overline{\mathcal{M}_g}$, where the set of possible values of $g\in \{1,\ldots,N\}$ has density $Ω(\log(N)…
In this paper we give a lower bound for the codimension of the Andreotti-Mayer loci in the moduli space of principally polarized complex abelian varieties. We also present a conjecture on this codimension.
We show that a cubic fourfold F that is apolar to a Veronese surface has the property that its variety of power sums VSP(F,10) is singular along a K3 surface of genus 20. We prove that these cubics form a divisor in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds and that this divisor is not a Noether-Lefschetz divisor. We use this result to prove that there is no nontrivial Hodge correspondence between a very general cubic and its VSP.
S. Kondō used periods of $K3$ surfaces to prove that the moduli space of genus three curves is birational to an arithmetic quotient of a complex 6-ball. In this paper we study Heegner divisors in the ball quotient, given by arithmetically defined hyperplane sections of the ball. We show that the corresponding loci of genus three curves are given by: hyperelliptic curves, singular plane quartics and plane quartics admitting certain rational "splitting curves".
We study effective divisors on $\overline{M}_{0,n}$, focusing on hypertree divisors introduced by Castravet and Tevelev and the proper transforms of divisors on $\overline{M}_{1,n-2}$ introduced by Chen and Coskun. Results include a database of hypertree divisor classes and closed formulas for Chen--Coskun divisor classes. We relate these two types of divisors, and from this construct extremal divisors on $\overline{M}_{0,n}$ for $n \geq 7$ that furnish counterexamples to the conjectural description of the effective cone of $\overline{M}_{0,n}$ given by Castravet and Tevelev.
In this mostly expository paper we review several known results about the cohomology of moduli spaces of smooth and stable curves, focusing in particular on low degree cohomology. We also give a new proof of Harer's theorem describing the second cohomology group of the moduli space of smooth n-pointed curves of given genus
Let $X$ be a smooth projective complex curve of genus $g \geq 2$ and let $\M_X(2,Λ)$ be the moduli space of semi-stable rank-$2$ vector bundles over $X$ with fixed determinant $Λ$. We show that the wobbly locus, i.e., the locus of semi-stable vector bundles admitting a non-zero nilpotent Higgs field is a union of divisors $\Ww_k \subset \M_X(2,Λ)$. We show that on one wobbly divisor the set of maximal subbundles is degenerate. We also compute the class of the divisors $\Ww_k$ in the Picard group of $\M_X(2,Λ)$.
This paper is an expository survey of results about the effective divisors on moduli spaces, with a focus on what is known about the effective cones of moduli spaces of stable curves and of principally polarized abelian varieties. This version incorporates clarifications and suggestions of Ana-Maria Castravet and the referee, both of whom we thank. To appear in the proceedings of the conference, "Joe at 60:A Celebration of Algebraic Geometry" edited by Brendan Hassett, James McKernan, Jason Starr and Ravi Vakil.
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 $2k$.
Let $f \colon (X,Δ) \to Y$ be a fibration such that $K_X + Δ$ is torsion along the fibres of $f$. Assume that $Y$ has dimension 2, or that $Y$ has dimension 3 and the fibres have dimension at most 3. Then the restriction of the moduli part to its augmented base locus is semiample.
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 $\bar{M}_{0,n}$.
Roughly speaking, by using the semi-stable minimal model program, we prove that the moduli part of an lc-trivial fibration coincides with that of a klt-trivial fibration induced by adjunction after taking a suitable generically finite cover. As an application, we obtain that the moduli part of an lc-trivial fibration is b-nef and abundant by Ambro's result on klt-trivial fibrations.
In this paper for each $n\ge g\ge 0$ we consider the moduli stack $\widetilde{\mathcal U}^{ns}_{g,n}$ of curves $(C,p_1,\ldots,p_n,v_1,\ldots,v_n)$ of arithmetic genus $g$ with $n$ smooth marked points $p_i$ and nonzero tangent vectors $v_i$ at them, such that the divisor $p_1+\ldots+p_n$ is nonspecial (has no $h^1$) and ample. With some mild restrictions on the characteristic we show that it is a scheme, affine over the Grassmannian $G(n-g,n)$. We also construct an isomorphism of $\widetilde{\mathcal U}^{ns}_{g,n}$ with a certain relative moduli of $A_\infty$-structures (up to an equivalence)…
We consider the moduli space of log smooth pairs formed by a cubic surface and an anticanonical divisor. We describe all compactifications of this moduli space which are constructed using Geometric Invariant Theory and the anticanonical polarization. The construction depends on a weight on the divisor. For smaller weights the stable pairs consist of mildly singular surfaces and very singular divisors. Conversely, a larger weight allows more singular surfaces, but it restricts the singularities on the divisor. The one-dimensional space of stability conditions decomposes in a wall-chamber struct…
We determine generators for the codimension 1 Chow group of the moduli spaces of genus zero stable maps to flag varieties G/P. In the case of SL flags, we find all relations between our generators, showing that they essentially come from $\bar M_{0,n}$. In addition, we analyze the codimension 2 classes on the moduli spaces of stable maps to Grassmannians and prove a new codimension 2 relation. This will lead to a partial reconstruction theorem for the Grassmannian of 2 planes.
We complete the proof of the fact that the moduli space of rank two bundles with trivial determinant embeds into the linear system of divisors on $Pic^{g-1}C$ which are linearly equivalent to $2Θ$. The embedded tangent space at a semi-stable non-stable bundle $ξ\oplusξ^{-1}$, where $ξ$ is a degree zero line bundle, is shown to consist of those divisors in $|2Θ|$ which contain $Sing(Θ_ξ)$ where $Θ_ξ$ is the translate of $Θ$ by $ξ$. We also obtain geometrical results on the structure of this tangent space.
In this paper, we initiate our investigation of log canonical models for the moduli space of curves with the boundary divisor $\a \d$ as we decrease $\a$ from 1 to 0. We prove that for the first critical value $\a = 9/11$, the log canonical model is isomorphic to the moduli space of pseudostable curves, which have nodes and cusps as singularities. We also show that $\a = 7/10$ is the next critical value, i.e., the log canonical model stays the same in the interval $(7/10, 9/11]$. In the appendix, we develop a theory of log canonical models of stacks that explains how these can be expressed in …
We establish a new moduli theory for divisors, that interpolates between the Hilbert scheme and the Cayley-Chow variety. This completes the last step in the construction of a good moduli theory for stable pairs $(X,Δ)$.
We give a bound on which singularities may appear on Kollár--Shepherd-Barron--Alexeev stable surfaces for a wide range of topological invariants and use this result to describe all stable numerical quintic surfaces (KSBA-stable surfaces with $K^2=χ=5$) whose unique non Du Val singularity is a Wahl singularity. We then extend the deformation theory of Horikawa to the log setting in order to describe the boundary divisor of the moduli space $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{5,5}$ corresponding to these surfaces. Quintic surfaces are the simplest examples of surfaces of general type and the question of de…
We perform an intersection theoretic study of the rational map between two different moduli spaces of stable curves which associates to a curve its corresponding Brill-Noether locus (in the case this locus has virtual dimension 1). We then use these results to describe the cone of moving divisors on M_g. Several other applications to moduli spaces of Prym varieties are presented. In a different direction, we prove that the locus in M_g of curves failing to satisfy the Gieseker-Petri theorem is supported in codimension 1 for every possible type of linear series.
We compute all the top intersection numbers of divisors on the total space of the Poincare bundle restricted to the product of a curve and the abelian variety. We use these computations to find the class of the universal theta divisor and $m$-theta divisor inside the universal corank 1 semiabelian variety -- the boundary of the partial toroidal compactification of the moduli space of abelian varieties. We give two computational examples: we compute the boundary coefficient of the Andreotti-Mayer divisor (computed by Mumford but in a much harder and ad hoc way), and the analog of this for the u…
We carry out a complete birational classification of the universal theta divisor Th_g over the moduli space of curves of genus g, and show that Th_g enjoys good rationality properties for g<12, and is a variety of general type for g\geq 12. The key ingredient is an intersection-theoretic study of the universal antiramification locus of the Gauss map. We also present a complete classification of the universal symmetric product of degree g-2 over M_g.
This paper studies the role of dg-Lie algebroids in derived deformation theory. More precisely, we provide an equivalence between the homotopy theories of formal moduli problems and dg-Lie algebroids over a commutative dg-algebra of characteristic zero. At the level of linear objects, we show that the category of representations of a dg-Lie algebroid is an extension of the category of quasi-coherent sheaves on the corresponding formal moduli problem. We describe this extension geometrically in terms of pro-coherent sheaves.
Let M_g be the moduli space of smooth curves of genus g >= 3, and \bar{M}_g the Deligne-Mumford compactification in terms of stable curves. Let \bar{M}_g^{[1]} be an open set of \bar{M}_g consisting of stable curves of genus g with one node at most. In this paper, we determine the necessary and sufficient condition to guarantee that a Q-divisor D on \bar{M}_g is nef over \bar{M}_g^{[1]}, that is, (D . C) >= 0 for all irreducible curves C on \bar{M}_g with C \cap \bar{M}_g^{[1]} \not= \emptyset.
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 $g$.
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 complete Mori's program with symmetric divisors for the moduli space of stable six pointed rational curves. As an application, we give an alternative proof of the complete Mori's program of the moduli space of genus two stable curves, done by Hassett.
We complete Mori's program with symmetric divisors for the moduli space of stable seven pointed rational curves. We describe all birational models in terms of explicit blow-ups and blow-downs. We also give a moduli theoretic description of the first flip, which have not appeared in literature.
After a general discussion of group actions, orbifolds, and "weak orbifolds" this note will provide elementary introductions to two basic moduli spaces over the real or complex numbers: First the moduli space of effective divisors with finite stabilizer on the projective space ${\mathbb P}^1$ modulo the group ${\rm PGL}_2$ of projective transformations of ${\mathbb P}^1$; and then the moduli space of effective 1-cycles with finite stabilizer on ${\mathbb P}^2$ modulo the group ${\rm PGL}_3$ of projective transformations of ${\mathbb P}^2$.
In [BM14b], the first author and Macrì constructed a family of nef divisors on any moduli space of Bridgeland-stable objects on a smooth projective variety X. In this article, we extend this construction to the setting of any separated scheme Y of finite type over a field, where we consider moduli spaces of Bridgeland-stable objects on Y with compact support. We also show that the nef divisor is compatible with the polarising ample line bundle coming from the GIT construction of the moduli space in the special case when Y admits a tilting bundle and the stability condition arises from a θ-stab…
We prove that if $m \ge n-3$ then every $S_m$-invariant F-nef divisor on the moduli space of stable $n$-pointed curves of genus zero is linearly equivalent to an effective combination of boundary divisors. As an application, we determine the Mori cone of the moduli spaces of stable curves of small genus with few marked points.
We describe two geometrically meaningful compactifications of the moduli space of elliptic K3 surfaces via stable slc pairs, for two different choices of a polarizing divisor, and show that their normalizations are two different toroidal compactifications of the moduli space, one for the ramification divisor and another for the rational curve divisor. In the course of the proof, we further develop the theory of integral affine spheres with 24 singularities. We also construct moduli of rational (generalized) elliptic stable slc surfaces of types ${\bf A_n}$ ($n\ge1$), ${\bf C_n}$ ($n\ge0$) and …
The Jacobian varieties of smooth curves fit together to form a family, the universal Jacobian, over the moduli space of smooth marked curves, and the theta divisors of these curves form a divisor in the universal Jacobian. In this paper we describe how to extend these families over the moduli space of stable marked curves (or rather an open subset thereof) using a stability parameter. We then prove a wall-crossing formula describing how the theta divisor varies with the stability parameter. We use that result to analyze a divisor on the moduli space of smooth marked curves that has recently be…
We give a conjectural description for the cone of effective divisors of the Grothendieck-Knudsen moduli space of stable rational curves with n marked points. Namely, we introduce new combinatorial structures called hypertrees and show they give exceptional divisors with many remarkable properties.
Let $C$ be a smooth projective curve of genus $g\geq 3$ and let $η$ be an odd theta characteristic on it such that $h^0(C,η) = 1$. Pick a point $p$ from the support of $η$ and consider the one-dimensional linear system $|η+ p|$. In general this linear system is base-point free and all its ramification points (i.e. ramification points of the corresponding branched cover $C\to\mathbb P^1\simeq \mathbb PH^0(C,η+p)$) are simple. We study the locus in the moduli space of odd spin curves where the linear system $|η+ p|$ fails to have this general behavior. This locus splits into a union of three div…
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.
Inside the symmetric product of a very general curve, we consider the codimension-one subvarieties of symmetric tuples of points imposing exceptional secant conditions on linear series on the curve of fixed degree and dimension. We compute the classes of such divisors, and thus obtain improved bounds for the slope of the cone of effective divisor classes on symmetric products of a very general curve. By letting the moduli of the curve vary, we study more generally the classes of the related divisors inside the moduli space of stable pointed curves.
We prove two statements on the slopes of effective divisors on the moduli space of stable curves of genus g: first that the Harris-Morrison Slope Conjecture fails for g=10 and second, that in order to compute the slope of the moduli space of curves for g\leq 23, one only has to consider the coefficients of the Hodge class and that of the boundary divisor δ_0 in the expansion of the relevant divisors. We conjecture that the same statement holds in arbitrary genus.
Given a vector bundle $E$ of rank $r$ and degree $d$ on a curve $C$ of genus $g$, one can associate to $E$ in a natural way several other vector bundles. For example, one can take wedge powers of $E$. If $E$ is generated by global sections, the kernel of the evaluation map of sections is again a vector bundle. Also, new vector bundles can be produced by taking elementary transformations centered at a fixed point. Under suitable conditions on degree and rank, these constructions can be carried out globally. While all this processes seem quite elementary, very little is known about the resulting…
We study a family of semiample divisors on the moduli space $\bar{M}_{0,n}$ that come from the theory of conformal blocks for the Lie algebra $sl_n$ and level 1. The divisors we study are invariant under the action of $S_n$ on $\bar{M}_{0,n}$. We compute their classes and prove that they generate extremal rays in the cone of symmetric nef divisors on $\bar{M}_{0,n}$. In particular, these divisors define birational contractions of $\bar{M}_{0,n}$, which we show factor through reduction morphisms to moduli spaces of weighted pointed curves defined by Hassett.
We develop a theory of Brill-Noether divisors on the moduli space of stable spin curves of genus g, and compute the classes of these loci. A spin Brill-Noether cycle is defined in terms of the relative position of the spin structure with respect to certain Raynaud theta-divisors in the Jacobian of the curve.
