Related papers: Characterizing Curves by their odd Theta-character…
A general canonical curve X determines a finite set T(X) of hyperplanes, which is in bijective correspondence with the set of odd theta-characteristics of X. The definition of T(X) can be extended to certain singular curves, in a way that…
The geometry of the moduli space of stable spin curves is studied, with emphasis on its combinatorial properties. In this context, the standard graph theoretic framework is not just a book-keeping device: some purely combinatorial results…
A basis for the space of generalized theta functions of level one for the spin groups, parameterized by the theta characteristics (the even theta characteristcs for the odd spin groups) on a curve, is shown to be projectively flat over the…
We give an explicit description of theta-characteristics on tropical curves and characterize the effective ones. We construct the moduli space for tropical theta-characteristics of genus g as a generalized cone complex. We describe the…
We discuss various aspects of the geometry of theta characteristics including the birational geometry of the spin moduli space of curves, parametrization of moduli via special K3 surfaces, as well as the relation with classical theta…
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…
We determine the smooth locus and the locus of canonical singularities in the Cornalba compactification \bar S_g of the moduli space S_g of spin curves, i.e., smooth curves of genus g with a theta characteristic. Moreover, the following…
The theta characteristics on a Riemann surface are permuted by the induced action of the automorphism group, with the orbit structure being important for the geometry of the curve and associated manifolds. We describe two new methods for…
This work is motivated by two central questions in the birational geometry of moduli spaces of curves -- Fulton's conjecture and the effective cone of $\bar M_g$. We study the algebro-geometric aspect of Teichmuller curves parameterizing…
We give an application of Mumford's theory of canonical theta characteristics to a Diophantine problem in characteristic two. We prove that a smooth plane curve over a global field of characteristic two is defined by the determinant of a…
A plane curve is called strange if its tangent line at any smooth point passes through a fixed point, called the strange point. In this paper, we study $\mathbb{A}^1$-curves on the complement of a rational strange curve of degree $p$ in…
In the article, we exhibit a series of new examples of rigid plane curves, that is, curves, whose collection of singularities determines them almost uniquely up to a projective transformation of the plane.
We describe the birational geometry of the moduli space S_g^{-} of odd spin curves (theta-characteristics) for all genera g. The odd spin moduli space is a uniruled variety for g<12, and of general type for g at least 12. Furthermore, for…
The Hodge bundle $\omega$ over a modular curve is a square-root of the canonical bundle twisted by the cuspidal divisor, or a theta characteristic, due to the Kodaira--Spencer isomorphism. We prove that, in most cases, a section of a theta…
The purpose of this note is to prove that there is an algebraic stack U parameterizing all curves. The curves that appear in the algebraic stack U are allowed to be arbitrarily singular, non-reduced, disconnected, and reducible. We also…
By developing a suitable version of the circle method, we show that the space of degree $e$ rational curves on a smooth hypersurface of degree $d$ has only canonical singularities provided its dimension is sufficiently large with respect to…
The characteristic numbers of smooth plane quartics are computed using intersection theory on a component of the moduli space of stable maps. This completes the verification of Zeuthen's prediction of characteristic numbers of smooth plane…
Given a smooth curve, the canonical representation of its automorphism group is the space of global holomorphic differential 1-forms as a representation of the automorphism group of the curve. In this paper, we study an explicit set of…
We determine conditions that guarantee that a hyperelliptic or plane curve over a field of characteristic not equal to 2 can be defined over its field of moduli. We also give new examples of curves not definable over their fields of moduli.
The stable rationality of components of the moduli space of (unparametrized) rational curves in projective $n$-space with fixed normal bundle is proved, provided these components dominate the moduli space of immersed rational curves in the…