Related papers: A calculus for the moduli space of curves
These notes cover our series of three lectures at Humboldt University in Berlin for the October 2010 conference "Intersection theory on moduli space" (organized by G. Farkas). The topic concerns relations among the kappa classes in the…
The virtual geometry of the moduli space of stable quotients is used to obtain Chow relations among the kappa classes on the moduli space of nonsingular genus g curves. In a series of steps, the stable quotient relations are rewritten in…
In the past few years, substantial progress has been made in the understanding of the algebra of kappa classes on the moduli spaces of curves. My goal here is to provide a short introduction to the new results. Along the way, I will discuss…
Pandharipande-Pixton have used the geometry of the moduli space of stable quotients to produce relations between tautological Chow classes on the moduli space $M_g$ of smooth genus g curves. We study a natural extension of their methods to…
This note is about invariants of moduli spaces of curves. It includes their intersection theory and cohomology. Our main focus in on the distinguished piece containing the so called tautological classes. These are the most natural classes…
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…
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…
These informal notes are an expanded version of lectures on the moduli space of elliptic curves given at Zhejiang University in July, 2008. Their goal is to introduce and motivate basic concepts and constructions (such as orbifolds and…
We describe a very large class of conjectural relations in the tautological ring of the moduli space $\bar{M}_{g,n}$ of stable curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points, extending and generalizing the Faber-Zagier relations. These notes…
This is a survey paper that also contains some new results. It will appear in the proceedings of the AMS summer research institute on Algebraic Geometry at Santa Cruz.
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…
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…
We construct the moduli space for equivalence classes of n-pointed tropical curves of genus g, together with its compactification given by weighted tropical curves, and establish some of its basic topological properties. We compare it to…
We describe a framework to construct tropical moduli spaces of rational stable maps to a smooth tropical hypersurface or curve. These moduli spaces will be tropical cycles of the expected dimension, corresponding to virtual fundamental…
The subalgebra of the tautological ring of the moduli of curves of compact type generated by the kappa classes is studied. Relations, constructed via the virtual geometry of the moduli of stable maps, are used to prove universality results…
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…
The subalgebra of the tautological ring of the moduli of curves of compact type generated by the kappa classes is studied in all genera. Relations, constructed via the virtual geometry of the moduli of stable quotients, are used to obtain…
Some recent progress towards understanding the cohomology of moduli spaces of curves is described. Madsen and Weiss have given a proof of a generalisation of Mumford's conjecture on the stable cohomology of these moduli spaces M_g, and…
We analyze Weierstrass cycles and tautological rings in moduli space of smooth algebraic curves and in moduli spaces of integral algebraic curves with embedded disks with special attention to moduli spaces of curves having genus $\leq 6$.…
Tropical geometry is a relatively recent field in mathematics created as a simplified model for certain problems in algebraic geometry. We introduce the definition of abstract and planar tropical curves as well as their properties,…