Related papers: Non-tautological cycles on moduli spaces of smooth…
We prove, for infinitely many values of $g$ and $n$, the existence of non-tautological algebraic cohomology classes on the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{g,n}$ of smooth, genus-$g$, $n$-pointed curves. In particular, when $n=0$, our results…
After a short exposition of the basic properties of the tautological ring of the moduli space of genus g Deligne-Mumford stable curves with n markings, we explain three methods of detecting non-tautological classes in cohomology. The first…
In this article we consider the moduli space of smooth $n$-pointed non-hyperelliptic curves of genus 3. In the pursuit of cohomological information about this space, we make $\mathbb{S}_n$-equivariant counts of its numbers of points defined…
Using Galois-Stiefel-Whitney classes of theta characteristics we show that over a totally real base field the moduli stack of smooth genus $g$ curves and the moduli stack of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension $g$ have…
We construct explicit examples of algebraic cycles in \bar M_g (for large g congruent to 2 mod 4) and in M_2,20 (no bar) which are not in the tautological ring. In an appendix we give a general method for computing intersections in the…
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…
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.
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 state and check the analogue of Faber's conjectures for the tautological ring of the moduli spaces $M_{g,n}$ of $n$-pointed smooth curves of genus $g$.
We suggest a general method of computation of the homology of certain smooth covers $\hat{\mathcal{M}}_{g,1}(\mathbb{C})$ of moduli spaces $\mathcal{M}_{g,1}\br{\mathbb{C}}$ of pointed curves of genus $g$. Namely, we consider moduli spaces…
We show that $\mathcal{M}_{g,n}$, the moduli space of smooth curves of genus $g$ together with $n$ marked points, is unirational for $g=12$ and $2 \leq n\leq 4$ and for $g=13$ and $1 \leq n \leq 3$, by constructing suitable dominant…
We study tautological classes on the moduli space of stable $n$-pointed hyperelliptic curves of genus $g$ with rational tails. Our result gives a complete description of tautological relations. The method is based on the approach of Yin in…
We prove that the number of curves of a fixed genus g over finite fields is a polynomial function of the size of the field if and only if g is at most 8. Furthermore, we determine for each positive genus g the smallest n such that the…
We show that various loci of stable curves of sufficiently large genus admitting degree $d$ covers of positive genus curves define non-tautological algebraic cycles on $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{g,N}$, assuming the non-vanishing of the $d$-th…
We prove that the moduli space ${\Cal M}_{g,n}$ of smooth curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points is rational for $g=6$ and $1 \le n \le 8$, and it is unirational for $g=8$ and $1 \le n \le 11$, $g=10$ and $1 \le n \le 3$, $g=12$ and $n…
We describe the structure of the top tautological group in the cohomology of the moduli space of smooth genus $g$ curves with $n$ marked points.
We study a space of genus $g$ stable, $n$-marked tropical curves with total edge length $1$. Its rational homology is identified both with top-weight cohomology of the complex moduli space $M_{g,n}$ and with the homology of a marked version…
In this paper we construct various non-trivial and non-tautological cohomology classes on compactified and uncompactified strata of curves with a differential, by using the geometry of the boundary stratification of the moduli space 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…
Full level-n structures on smooth, complex curves are trivializations of the n-torsion points of their Jacobians. We give an algebraic proof that the etale cohomology of the moduli space of smooth, complex curves of genus at least 2 with…