Related papers: Towards Mori's program for the moduli space of sta…
We define a geometrically meaningful compactification of the moduli space of smooth plane curves, which can be calculated explicitly. The basic idea is to regard a plane curve D in P^2 as a pair (P^2,D) of a surface together with a divisor,…
This is the first in a pair of papers developing a framework for the application of logarithmic structures in the study of singular curves of genus $1$. We construct a smooth and proper moduli space dominating the main component of…
The moduli space $\bar{M}_{0,n}$ of Deligne-Mumford stable n-pointed rational curves admits morphisms to spaces recently constructed by Giansiracusa, Jensen, and Moon that we call Veronese quotients. We study divisors on $\bar{M}_{0,n}$…
We determine explicit birational models over Q for the modular surfaces parametrising pairs of N-congruent elliptic curves in all cases where this surface is an elliptic surface. In each case we also determine the rank of the Mordell-Weil…
We study compactifications of subvarieties of algebraic tori defined by imposing a sufficiently fine polyhedral structure on their non-archimedean amoebas. These compactifications have many nice properties, for example any k boundary…
We describe a new approach to the definition of the moduli functor of stable varieties. While there is wide agreement as to what classes of varieties should appear, the notion of a family of stable surfaces is quite subtle, as key numerical…
This largely expository paper first gives an introduction to Hilbert stability and its use in Gieseker's GIT construction of $\overline{M}_g$. Then I review recent work in this area--variants for unpointed curves that arise in Hassett's log…
We construct moduli spaces of rational covers of an arbitrary smooth tropical curve in R^r as tropical varieties. They are contained in the balanced fan parametrizing tropical stable maps of the appropriate degree to R^r. The weights of the…
We make a systematic study of the Hilbert-Mumford criterion for different notions of stability for polarised algebraic varieties $(X,L)$; in particular for K- and Chow stability. For each type of stability this leads to a concept of slope…
Let X be a smooth complex irreducible projective variety of dimension $n \geq 2$ and $H$ be an ample line bundle on $X$. In this paper, we construct families of $\mu_H$-stable vector bundles on $X$ having fixed determinant and rank $r$,…
The new compactification of moduli scheme of Gieseker-stable vector bundles with the given Hilbert polynomial on a smooth projective polarized surface (S;H), over the field k = \bar k of zero characteristic, is constructed in previous…
We develop the local Morse theory for a class of non-twice continuously differentiable functionals on Hilbert spaces, including a new generalization of the Gromoll-Meyer's splitting theorem and a weaker Marino-Prodi perturbation type…
We study the Severi variety $V_{d,g}$ of plane curves of degree $d$ and geometric genus $g$. Corresponding to every such variety, there is a one-parameter family of genus $g$ stable curves whose numerical invariants we compute. Building on…
The Gieseker-Uhlenbeck morphism maps the Gieseker moduli space of stable rank-2 sheaves on a smooth projective surface to the Uhlenbeck compactification, and is a generalization of the Hilbert-Chow morphism for Hilbert schemes of points.…
These are expanded notes on a lecture of the same title at the 2015 AMS summer institute in algebraic geometry. We give an introduction and overview of the "beyond geometric invariant theory" program for analyzing moduli problems in…
For $g\geq2$, $j=1,\dots,g$ and $n\geq g+j$ we exhibit infinitely many new rigid and extremal effective codimension $j$ cycles in $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{g,n}$ from the strata of quadratic differentials and projections of these strata…
We define a Deligne-Mumford stack X_{D,r} which depends on a scheme X, an effective Cartier divisor D\subset X, and a positive integer r. Then we show that the Abramovich-Vistoli moduli stack of stable maps into X_{D,r} provides…
An explicit invariant-theoretic description of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_3^1$ of degree-three rational maps on $\mathbb{P}^1$ is developed. A cubic map $\phi$ is represented, up to conjugation, by the pair of binary forms $(f, g) \in…
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…
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…