The purpose of these notes is to give an introduction to Deligne-Mumford stacks and their moduli spaces, with emphasis on the moduli problem for curves. The paper has 4 sections. In section 1 we discuss the general problem of constructing a moduli "space" of curves. In section 2 we give an introduction to Deligne-Mumford stacks and their moduli spaces. In section 3 we return to curves and outline Deligne and Mumford's proof that the stack of stable curves is a smooth and irreducible Deligne-Mumford stack which is proper over Spec Z. In section 4 we explain how to use geometric invariant to construct moduli spaces for quotient stacks. Finally, we briefly outline Gieseker's geometric invariant theory construction of the moduli scheme of projective curves defined over an algebraically closed field.
These notes are a slightly revised version of notes which the author has circulated privately for several years, and are based on lectures the author gave at the Weizmann Institute in July 1994. They are also available at the URL http://math.missouri.edu/~edidin/Papers/ Any updates will be posted to this URL.
We discuss some relations of moduli of sheaves on rational surfaces by using universal extensions. These are a generalization of Maruyama's method to construct Uhlenbeck compactification of moduli of vector bundles.
This paper studies deformations and birational maps between singular moduli spaces of semistable sheaves with 2-divisible Mukai vectors on K3 surfaces. It is showed that under certain conditions, two such moduli spaces of the same dimension can be connected by deformations and birational maps.
Let $X$ be a compact Riemann surface of genus $g \geq 3$. We consider the moduli space of holomorphic connections over $X$ and the moduli space of logarithmic connections singular over a finite subset of $X$ with fixed residues. We determine the Chow group of these moduli spaces. We compute the global sections of the sheaves of differential operators on ample line bundles and their symmetric powers over these moduli spaces, and show that they are constant under certain condition. We show the Torelli type theorem for the moduli space of logarithmic connections. We also describe the rational con…
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.
We study some natural linear systems carried by polarized Nikulin surfaces of genus g. We determine their positivity and establish their Brill-Noether theory. As an application, we compute the class of some natural effective divisors associated to these linear systems on the moduli space of Nikulin surfaces, relying upon recent work of Farkas and Rimányi.
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 discuss the GIT moduli of semistable pairs consisting of a cubic curve and a line on the projective plane. We study in some detail this moduli and compare it with another moduli suggested by Alexeev. It is the moduli of pairs (with no specified semi-abelian action) consisting of a cubic curve with at worst nodal singularities and a line which does not pass through singular points of the cubic curve. Meanwhile, we make a comparison between Nakamura's compactification of the moduli of level three elliptic curves and these two moduli spaces.
We study the existence of components with the expected number of moduli of the Hilbert scheme of integral nodal curves $C \subset \mathbb {P}^r$ with prescribed degree, arithmetic genus and number of singular points.
This paper studies formality of the differential graded algebra $RHom(E,E)$, where $E$ is a semistable sheaf on a K3 surface. The main tool is Kaledin's theorem on formality in families. For a large class of sheaves $E$, this DG algebra is formal, therefore we have an explicit description of the singularity type of the moduli space of semistable sheaves at the point represented by $E$. This paper also explains why Kaledin's theorem fails to apply in the remaining case.
The space of smooth curves admits a beautiful compactification by the moduli space of Deligne-Mumford stable curves. In this paper, we undertake a systematic investigation of alternate modular compactifications of the space of smooth curves.
We establish the Airy curve case of a conjecture of Gukov and Sułkowski by reducing to Dijkgraaf-Verlinde-Verlinde Virasoro constraints satisfied by the intersection numbers on moduli spaces of algebraic curves.
We discuss selected topics on the topology of moduli spaces of curves and maps, emphasizing their relation with Gromov--Witten theory and integrable systems.
We study a compactification of the moduli space of theta characteristics, giving a modular interpretation of the geometric points and describing the boundary stratification. This space is different from the moduli space of spin curves. The modular description and the boundary stratification of the new compactification are encoded by a tropical moduli space. We show that this tropical moduli space is a refinement of the moduli space of spin tropical curves. We describe explicitly the induced decomposition of its cones.
We construct a new compactification of the moduli space H_g of smooth hyperelliptic curves of genus g. We compare our compactification with other well-known remarkable compactifications of H_g .
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.
Let $C$ be an algebraic curve of genus $g$ and $L$ a line bundle over $C$. Let $\mathcal{MS}_C(n,L)$ and $\mathcal{MO}_C(n,L)$ be the moduli spaces of $L$-valued symplectic and orthogonal bundles respectively, over $C$ of rank $n$. We construct rational curves on these moduli spaces which generalize Hecke curves on the moduli space of vector bundles. As a main result, we show that these Hecke type curves have the minimal degree among the rational curves passing through a general point of the moduli spaces. As its byproducts, we show the non-abelian Torelli theorem and compute the automorphism …
We define a moduli space of stable regular singular parabolic connections of spectral type on smooth projective curves and show the smoothness of the moduli space and give a relative symplectic structure on the moduli space. Moreover, we define the isomonodromic deformation on this moduli space and prove the geometric Painlevé property of the isomonodromic deformation.
We compute the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular non-hyperelliptic complex projective curves of genus 3 with an odd theta characteristic.
Here we calculate the Chern classes of ${\bar {\mathcal M}}_{g,n}$, the moduli stack of stable n-pointed curves. In particular, we prove that such classes lie in the tautological ring.
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 ${\mathcal A}_4$.
The paper aims to give an account, both historical and geometric, on the diverse geography of rational parametrizations of moduli spaces related to curves. It is a contribution to the book Handbook of Moduli, editors G. Farkas and I. Morrison, to be published by International Press. Refereed version.
We prove that the coarse moduli space of curves of genus 6 is birational to an arithmetic quotient of a bounded symmetric domain of type IV by giving a period map to the moduli space of some lattice-polarized K3 surfaces.
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.
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.
These are notes for a series of five lectures on "Moduli and degenerations of algebraic curves via tropical geometry" delivered at the CIMPA-CIMAT-ICTP School on Moduli of Curves, February 29-March 4, 2016 in Guanajuato, Mexico.
We investigate low degree rational cohomology groups of smooth compactifications of moduli spaces of curves with level structures. In particular, we determine $H^k(\sgbar, \Q)$ for $g \ge 2$ and $k \le 3$, where $\sgbar$ denotes the moduli space of spin curves of genus $g$.
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.
We consider the stack of stable curves of genus g with a given dual graph and we give an explicit desingularization of its closure in the moduli stack of stable curves. We study in particular the one-dimensional substack of curves with at least 3g-4 nodes.
We study the tropicalization of the moduli space of algebraic spin curves, exhibit its combinatorial stratification and prove that the strata are irreducible. We construct the moduli space of tropical spin curves, prove that it is isomorphic to the skeleton of the Berkovich analytification of the moduli space of algebraic spin curves, and give a geometric interpretation of the retraction map in terms of a tropicalization map.
We construct a moduli space for Legendrian curves singularities which are contactomorphic-equivalent and equisingular through a contact analogue of the Kodaira-Spencer map for curve singularities. We focus on the specific case of Legendrian curves which are the conormal of a plane curve with one Puiseux pair.
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.
In this short note, we show that any rational curve passing through the generic point in a moduli space of stable bundles with rank $r$ and fixed determinant on a smooth projective curve of genus $g\ge 4$ has degree (with respect to the anti-canonical line bundle of the moduli space) at least $2r$. It has degree $2r$ if and only if it is a Hecke curve.
We discuss analogs of Faber's conjecture for two nested sequences of partial compactifications of the moduli space of smooth curves. We show that their tautological rings are one-dimensional in top degree but do not satisfy Poincare duality.
In this paper we proof the existence of a linearization for singular principal G-bundles not depending on the base curve. This allow us to construct the relative compact moduli space of δ-(semi)stable singular principal G-bundles over families of reduced projective and connected nodal curves, and to reduce the construction of the universal moduli space over $\overline{M}_{g}$ to the construction of the universal moduli space of swamps.
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.
In this note we give a brief review of the construction of a toric variety $\mathcal{V}$ coming from a genus $g \geq 2$ Riemann surface $Σ^g$ equipped with a trinion, or pair of pants, decomposition. This was outlined by J. Hurtubise and L. C. Jeffrey in \cite{JH1}. In \cite{T1} A. Tyurin used this construction on a certain collection of trinion decomposed surfaces to produce a variety $DM_g$ -- the so-called Delzant model of moduli space -- for each genus $g.$ We conclude this note with some basic facts about the moment polytopes of the varieties $\mathcal{V}.$ In particular, we show that the…
We compute the first, second, third, and fifth rational cohomology groups of the moduli space of stable n-pointed genus g curves, for all g and n, using (mostly) algebro-geometric techniques.
