Related papers: On the geometry of $\bar{S}_2$

This thesis contains work which appeared in several papers. Additionally to the results in the papers it contains a detailed introduction and some further proofs and remarks. The dissertation gives a description of the topology and…

We study the moduli space of A-infinity structures on a topological space as well as the moduli space of A-infinity-ring structures on a fixed module spectrum. In each case we show that the moduli space sits in a homotopy fiber sequence in…

Here we investigate some birational properties of two collections of moduli spaces, namely moduli spaces of (pointed) stable curves and of (pointed) spin curves. In particular, we focus on vanishings of Hodge numbers of type (p,0) and on…

We prove that the moduli space of curves with level structures has an enormous amount of rational cohomology in its cohomological dimension. As an application, we prove that the coherent cohomological dimension of the moduli space of curves…

We study the topology of the moduli space of unramified $\mathbb{Z}/p$-covers of tropical curves of genus $g \geq 2$, where $p$ is a prime number. We use recent techniques by Chan--Galatius--Payne to identify contractible subcomplexes of…

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…

In this expository article we give a categorical definition of the integral cohomology ring of a stack. We show that for quotient stacks the categorical cohomology may be identified with equivariant cohomology. Via this identification we…

In this note, we investigate some topological properties of probabilistic modular spaces.

As was shown by Harer the second homology of ${\mathbb M}_g$, the moduli space of compact Riemann surfaces of genus $g$, is of rank 1, provided $g \geq 3$. This means a nontrivial second de Rham cohomology class on ${\mathbb M}_g$ is unique…

In the study of the Type II superstring, it is useful to consider the BRST complex associated to the sum of two pure spinors. The cohomology of this complex is an infinite-dimensional vector space. It is also a finite-dimensional algebra…

We analyze the local structure of the moduli space of semi-stable bundles on a curve. In particular, a complete description of the local structure is given in the rank 2 case. We obtain as a corollary of this analysis new results about the…

We study the moduli space of Higgs bundles on a compact Riemann surface. It was shown by Thaddeus and Hausel (in rank 2) and Markman (in general rank) that the rational cohomology ring of this space is generated by universal classes. In…

This informal note collects key results and open problems on the (co)homology of the Deligne-Mumford moduli spaces of real marked rational curves. The open problems are both of topological nature, aiming to investigate the (co)homology of…

We consider the cohomology of local systems on the moduli space of curves of genus 2 and the moduli space of abelian surfaces. We give an explicit formula for the Eisenstein cohomology and a conjectural formula for the endoscopic…

We study the topology of the tropical moduli space parametrizing stable tropical curves of genus g with n marked points in which the bounded edges have total length 1, and prove that it is highly connected. Using the identification of this…

We compute the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular complex projective curves of genus 3 with two marked points.

We study the cohomology ring of the configuration space of unordered points in the two dimensional torus. In particular, we compute the mixed Hodge structure on the cohomology, the action of the mapping class group, the structure of the…

In this paper we study the homology and cohomology of confguration spaces of two distinct particles on a graph. Our main tool is intersection theory for cycles in graphs. We obtain an explicit description of the cohomology algebra of the…

For g>2 we study the cohomology classes in the closure of a stratum of abelian differentials defined by the boundary strata of codimension one. As an application, we find an explicit stratification of the spin moduli space for an odd spin…

We connect the homotopy type of simplicial moduli spaces of algebraic structures to the cohomology of their deformation complexes. Then we prove that under several assumptions, mapping spaces of algebras over a monad in an appropriate…