By studying wall crossings of Hassett moduli spaces of weighted pointed curves, we prove a recursive formula that reduces the computation of the cohomology of Mg,n to that of the moduli space Mg,(0+)n of stable pointed curves of minimal weights. For g=1, we further prove an explicit formula for the Hodge-Deligne and Poincaré polynomials of M1,(0+)n. Combining these, we prove formulas that enable us to compute the cohomology of M1,n efficiently.
Introduction
The moduli space Mg,n of stable curves of genus g with n marked points is one of the most important objects in algebraic geometry [10, 20]. It parametrizes connected projective curves C of arithmetic genus g with at worst nodal singularities together with n ordered smooth marked points p1,…,pn in C such that
pi are all distinct and
ωC(∑ipi) is ample.
It is a smooth proper Deligne-Mumford stack with projective coarse moduli space. It plays a fundamental role in modern enumerative geometry and serves as a model for moduli spaces of higher dimensional varieties. For over half a century, much effort has been exerted to understand the geometry and topology of Mg,n and there has been a constant stream of new discoveries even until now [1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 17].
In this paper, we focus on the cohomology of M1,n. Getzler [12] found a formula for the Sn-equivariant Hodge-Deligne polynomials of M1,n for all n, by the theory of modular operads [14]. It expresses them in terms of the equivariant Hodge-Deligne polynomials of the open moduli spaces M1,n, computed in [13] by means of the Eichler-Shimura isomorphism, and of genus zero data, combined by plethystic composition. This determines the Hodge numbers of M1,n together with the Sn-action on its cohomology. Getzler listed the Hodge-Deligne polynomials of M1,n for n≤15[12], and the Sn-equivariant ones were tabulated for n≤20 by Bergström [3].
In genus zero, on the other hand, the Poincaré polynomial of M0,n is given by an explicit recursive formula [21 (4.12)], which can be proved by Keel’s blowup construction [18]. Therefore it seems reasonable to ask the following.
Question 1.1. Is there an explicit recursive formula for the Poincaré and Hodge-Deligne polynomials of M1,n which comes from a sequence of blowups, as in genus zero?
The purpose of this paper is to provide a positive answer to this question. This gives a new proof of Getzler’s results on the Hodge numbers of M1,n, by elementary formulas which involve only binomial coefficients, Stirling numbers and dimensions of spaces of cusp forms, and an effective way to compute the Hodge and Betti numbers of M1,n for large n. Since our recursion comes from explicit smooth blowups, it also holds for any invariant satisfying the blowup formula, such as Chow groups.
Our computation of H∗(M1,n) is achieved in two stages. We first reduce the computation to a simpler moduli space M1,(0+)n, where 0+ denotes a positive rational number sufficiently close to 0. We note that many of the strata in M1,n disappear and the computation becomes much easier if we allow all the marked points to coincide. This happens in the moduli space M1,(0+)n of stable pointed curves with weight 0+ for each marked point [16]. By studying wall crossings in Hassett’s moduli spaces of weighted pointed curves, we prove the following.
Theorem 1.2 (Theorem 3.1). Let g≥1 and fix any invariant H of smooth proper Deligne-Mumford stacks satisfying the blowup formula (2.2) such as the Hodge-Deligne or Poincaré polynomial. Let Mg,r∣s=Mg,(1r,(0+)s) be the moduli space of stable curves of genus g with r points of weight 1 and s points of weight 0+. Let Hr∣s:=HMg,r∣s. Then for r,s≥0 with r+s>0 and n>0, the following hold:
All Hr∣s are recursively determined by (1.1) if we know H0∣n=HMg,(0+)n for all n.
The theorem is equivalent to [17 Theorem A]. Our proof comes from explicit blowups and gives us a Hodge conjecture comparison (Corollary 3.2).
Next we compute the cohomology of M1,(0+)n piece by piece. Let
π:M1,(0+)n⟶M1,0+=M1,1
be the morphism that forgets all the marked points except the first. The inverse image In=π−1(M1,1) of M1,1 is the (n−1)-fold fiber product of the universal curve
by the relative Künneth formula, where V=R1q∗Q. Note that Hc∗(M1,1,V⊗k)=0 for k odd by the action of the generic stabilizer −I∈SL2(Z). By expanding the right hand side of (1.3) and applying the Clebsch-Gordan rule, the computation of Hc∗(In) is reduced to that of Hc∗(M1,1,Sym2jV) which can be obtained by the Eichler-Shimura isomorphism (cf. Lemma 4.2). Combining these, we find that the Hodge-Deligne polynomial of the interior In is (cf. Proposition 4.1)
The complement Bn=π−1(∞)=M1,(0+)n−In consists of pointed rational nodal curves. Let Bn,j⊂M1,(0+)n be the locus of pointed rational curves whose dual graphs are necklaces with j vertices. It is obvious that there are γn,j dual graphs with j vertices, where
and (jn) denotes the Stirling number of the second kind. For j≥3, each connected component of Bn,j is isomorphic to (C∗)n−j and hence Hc∗(Bn,j) has Hodge-Deligne polynomial γn,j(uv−1)n−j. For j=1,2, we have to consider an additional action of S2 which acts on C∗ by z↦z−1. Combining all these, we find that the Hodge-Deligne polynomial of the boundary Bn is
The Hodge-Deligne polynomialHn∣0ofM1,n=M1,n∣0can be computed by the recursive formula(2)together with(1)and(6).
Letting u=v=−t, we get the Poincaré polynomial of M1,n. Note that only the last line in (6) has odd degree terms.
It is straightforward to implement the above theorem into a computer program and we can compute the Hodge-Deligne and Poincaré polynomials of M1,n for large n within a relatively short period of time.
Motivated by recent discoveries on the cohomology of M0,n[1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9], we raise the following.
Question 1.4. (1) The sequence of blowups in § 3 is not Sn-equivariant. Can the method of this paper be refined to compute the Sn-equivariant Hodge-Deligne polynomials of M1,n, giving a new proof of Getzler’s formula [12, 13]?
(2) Do the coefficients of the even degree Poincaré polynomial PM1,neven(x)=∑i=0nxidimH2i(M1,n) of M1,n form a log-concave or k-ultra log-concave sequence for some k?
(3) Does the probability distribution of the coefficients of PM1,neven(x)/PM1,neven(1) converge to a Gaussian distribution?
(4) Can we find effective estimates of the Betti numbers of M1,n for large n?
(5) Can we also use the method in this paper to calculate the Hodge-Deligne and Poincaré polynomials of Mg,n for g≥2? Note that Theorem 3.1 holds for all g≥1 and hence it suffices to calculate the Hodge-Deligne polynomial of Mg,0∣n.
In subsequent papers, we will continue our investigation to seek answers to the above questions.
Convention. All schemes and stacks in this paper are defined over the complex number field C and all cohomology groups have rational coefficients.
Acknowledgement. It is my pleasure to thank Gergely Bérczi, Jonas Bergström, Jinwon Choi, Shiyue Li and Han-Bom Moon for useful discussions and comments.
Moduli spaces of weighted pointed curves and Hodge-Deligne polynomials
In this section, we collect necessary facts about Hassett moduli spaces [16] and Hodge-Deligne polynomials that will be used throughout this paper.
Definition 2.1.[16] Let g,n≥0. For A=(a1,…,an)∈(0,1]n with 2g−2+∑iai>0, a connected curve C with marked points p1,…,pn∈C is called A-stable if
(1) C has at worst nodal singularities and pi are all smooth points;
(2) if pi1=pi2=⋯=pik, then ai1+⋯+aik≤1;
(3) ωC(a1p1+⋯+anpn) is ample.
Let Mg,A denote the moduli stack of A-stable n-pointed curves of genus g. In particular, when ai>1/2 for all i, Mg,A coincides with the Knudsen-Deligne-Mumford moduli stack Mg,n of stable curves of genus g with n marked points [10, 20].
Let us summarize useful facts about Mg,A from [16].
Theorem 2.2. Let A=(a1,…,an)∈(0,1]n with 2g−2+∑i=1nai>0.
(1) Mg,A is a smooth connected proper Deligne-Mumford stack of dimension 3g−3+n with projective coarse moduli space.
(2) If A=(a1,…,an), A′=(a1′,…,an′) and ai≥ai′ for all i, then we have a natural morphism
ρA,A′:Mg,A⟶Mg,A′(7)
which is obtained by contracting rational components in an A-stable curve which are not A′-stable.
(3) For 2<r≤n, if ai1′+⋯+air′≤1 and ai1+⋯+air>1 but any proper subset of {ai1,…,air} has sum at most one while aj=aj′ for j=i1,…,ir, then the morphism ρA,A′ is the smooth blowup along the locus Mg,A′ in Mg,A′ where pi1=⋯=pir and A′ is obtained from A′ by replacing ai1′,…,air′ by their sum.
(4) If r≤2 for any I⊂[n] such that ai1+⋯+air>1 and ai1′+⋯+air′≤1, then ρA,A′ is an isomorphism.
Proof. (1) is [16 Theorem 2.1] and (2) is [16 Theorem 4.1] while (3) is [16 Remark 4.6] and (4) is [16 Corollary 4.7]. □
In this paper, we will consider invariants H of smooth proper Deligne-Mumford stacks which assign an element HX of a ring to each X over C satisfying the blowup formula: If X→Y is the smooth blowup along Z of codimension c, then
HX=HY+HZ⋅(HPc−1−1).(8)
For instance, H may be the Hodge-Deligne or the Poincaré polynomial of X. Our result in §3 (Theorem 3.1) relies only on the blowup formula (2.2).
For the computation in §4 (Theorem 4.4), we will let H be the Hodge-Deligne polynomial
where grFp and grp+qW denote the graded parts with respect to the Hodge filtration and weight filtration respectively. Since the mixed Hodge structure is natural, the Hodge-Deligne polynomial is a motivic invariant in the sense that
(1) HX=HX−Z+HZ for any closed Z⊂X and
(2) HX×Y=HX⋅HY.
By letting u=v=−t, we obtain the virtual Poincaré polynomial
PX(t)=HX(−t,−t)∈Z[t]
of X which is also a motivic invariant.
Reduction to minimally weighted curves
In this section, we prove an explicit formula (Theorem 3.1) that calculates the invariants of Mg,n=Mg,1n from those of Mg,(0+)n where (0+)n∈(0,1]n denotes an element sufficiently close to zero, for g≥1.
Fix g≥1 and n≥1. Then Mg,A is a nonempty proper smooth Deligne-Mumford stack for any A∈(0,1]n. For 0≤r<n and 0<s≤n−r, let
Ar,s(n)=(1,…,1,n−rs,n−r1,…,n−r1)∈(0,1]n(9)
where 1 is repeated r−1 times and n−r1 is repeated n−r times. For instance, A0,s(n)=(n1,…,n1) for any s. Let
Fix an invariant H satisfying the blowup formula and let
Hr∣s:=HMg,r∣s=HYr,s(n)(13)
be the invariant of Mg,r∣s. Then we have H0∣n=HMg,(0+)n and Hn∣0=HMg,n by (3.4).
Now our goal is to reach Yn−2,2(n)=Mg,n starting from Y0,n(n)=Mg,(0+)n by smooth blowups so that we can reduce the computation of Hn∣0 to H0∣n. Let us first reach Y1,n−1(n). The natural map
ρA1,1(n),A0,n(n):Y1,1(n)⟶Y0,n(n)
is the smooth blowup along the locus Mg,1∣0=Mg,1 of p1=p2=⋯=pn by Theorem 2.2 (3). Likewise, for 1≤k≤n−3, the natural map
ρA1,k+1(n),A1,k(n):Y1,k+1(n)⟶Y1,k(n)
is the smooth blowup along the locus of p1=pi1=⋯=pin−k−1 for {i1,…,in−k−1}⊂{2,…,n} which consists of (kn−1) copies of Mg,1∣k. Note that Y1,n−2(n)=Y1,n−1(n) by (12). By applying the blowup formula (8) to these morphisms, we find that
Next, let us reach Y2,n−2(n) from Y1,n−1(n). The natural map
ρA2,1(n),A1,n−1(n):Y2,1(n)⟶Y1,n−1(n)
is the smooth blowup along the locus Mg,2∣0=Mg,2 of p2=p3=⋯=pn by Theorem 2.2 (3). For 1≤k≤n−4, the natural map
ρA2,k+1(n),A2,k(n):Y2,k+1(n)⟶Y2,k(n)
is the smooth blowup along the locus of p2=pi1=⋯=pin−k−2 for {i1,…,in−k−2}⊂{3,…,n} which consists of (kn−2) copies of Mg,2∣k. We have Y2,n−3(n)=Y2,n−2(n) by (12) and the blowup formula (8) gives us
All Hr∣s are recursively determined by (16) if we know H0∣n=HMg,(0+)n for all n.
In particular, the invariants HMg,n=Hn∣0 can be recursively calculated by (17) if we know the invariants HMg,(0+)n=H0∣n for all n≥1. Conversely, if we know HMg,n=Hn∣0 for all n≥1, we can recursively calculate HMg,(0+)n=H0∣n for all positive n.
The above factorization of the natural morphism
ρ:Mg,n⟶Mg,(0+)n
into smooth blowups in the proof of Theorem 3.1 tells us that the Chow motive of Mg,n is a direct sum of Tate twists of the Chow motives of Mg,(0+)m for m≤n. Moreover, recall that the Hodge conjecture is about the surjectivity of the cycle class map
Ap(X)Q⟶Hp,p(X)∩H2p(X,Q)
and that we have the blowup formulas for the Chow and ordinary cohomology groups [11, 15]. So the following are straightforward from the proof of Theorem 3.1.
Let g≥1. Then the Hodge conjecture holds on Mg,m for all m≤n if and only if it holds on Mg,(0+)m for all m≤n.
The Hodge conjecture holds on M1,(0+)n and on any M1,r∣s for n=r+s≥1.
Note that the Hodge conjecture holds on M1,n for any n≥1 by (26).
Moduli spaces of minimally weighted curves
In this section, we let g=1 and let H be the Hodge-Deligne polynomial. We find an explicit formula that calculates the Hodge-Deligne polynomials of the moduli spaces M1,(0+)n of stable curves of genus 1 with n marked points whose weights are ≤1/n. By Theorem 3.1, we can then calculate HM1,n for all n>0.
Note that in M1,(0+)n, all the marked points are allowed to coincide as long as they stay away from the nodes. Let
π=πn:M1,(0+)n⟶M1,0+=M1,1
be the morphism that forgets all the marked points except the first. Using the stratification
M1,1=M1,1⊔{∞}
where ∞ parameterizes the unique singular rational curve, we have the decomposition
M1,(0+)n=In⊔Bn,Bn=πn−1(∞),In=πn−1(M1,1)
into the interior and the boundary.
Let In=HIn and Bn=HBn be the Hodge-Deligne polynomials of In and Bn respectively so that
H0∣n=HM1,(0+)n=In+Bn
is the Hodge-Deligne polynomial of M1,(0+)n.
The Hodge-Deligne Polynomial In of In
In this subsection, we prove the following.
Proposition 4.1.In(u,v)=Ineven(u,v)+Inodd(u,v) with
See Example 5.1 for an explicit computation of In for n≤10.
Let q:C→M1,1 denote the universal curve. By our choice of stability condition, all the marked points are allowed to coincide and hence In is nothing but the (n−1)-fold fiber product
π:In=C×M1,1C×M1,1⋯×M1,1C⟶M1,1
which is a smooth projective fibration with fiber En−1 for an elliptic curve E∈M1,1.
Let V=R1q∗Q. Then V is a local system of rank 2 over M1,1 and
Rq∗Q≅(Q⊕Q(−1)[−2])⊕V[−1].
Let π′=π∣In. By the relative Künneth theorem, we have
where S2k+2 denotes the space of cusp forms of weight 2k+2 with respect to SL2(Z). The first factor Q has weight 0 and S2k+2 is of Hodge type (2k+1,0).
Proof. Let j:M1,1→M1,1 denote the inclusion map. Then we have an exact triangle
j!V2k⟶j∗V2k⟶j∗V2k∣∞⟶.
By the Eichler-Shimura isomorphism [23 Theorem 8.4], we have
As the cusp ∞ has the stabilizer group generated by
σ:=(1011),
H0(∞,j∗V2k∣∞) is the σ-invariant part (Sym2kQ2)σ≅Q. This completes the proof. □
It is well known that dimS2k+2=β2k+2 for k>0 by Riemann-Roch, using the notation of (18).
The Hodge-Deligne Polynomial Bn of Bn
Let γn,1=1, γn,2=2n−1−1 and for k>2, let
γn,k=(kn)2(k−1)!=2k1i=0∑k(−1)k−i(ik)in(22)
where (kn) denotes the Stirling number of the second kind, i.e. the number of ways to partition [n]={1,2,⋯,n} into k unordered subsets. In this subsection, we prove the following.
See Example 5.2 for the calculation of Bn for n≤10.
Observe that we have a decomposition
Bn=1≤j≤n∐Bn,j
where Bn,j denotes the locus of curves with j rational components i.e. the dual graph is a necklace with j vertices.
If (C,p1,⋯,pn)∈Bn,1, C is a rational curve with normalization P1. Let 0,∞∈P1 map to the node of C. Then we find that
Bn,1≅(C∗)n/(C∗×S2)≅(C∗)n−1/S2
where −1∈S2 acts by (z1,⋯,zn−1)↦(z1−1,⋯,zn−1−1). Therefore, we have
Hc∗(Bn,1)≅(Hc∗(C∗)⊗n−1)S2
whose Hodge-Deligne polynomial is
HBn,1(u,v)=21((uv+1)n−1+(uv−1)n−1).(23)
If (C,p1,⋯,pn)∈Bn,2, C=C1∪C2 with C1,C2≅P1. The locus Bn,2,k of such pointed curves where one component has k marked points while the other has n−k points is
((C∗)k/C∗×(C∗)n−k/C∗)/S2≅(C∗)n−2/S2
where S2 interchanges the two nodes. We thus find that
For j≥3, the number of ways to distribute n marked points to j components is γn,j in (22). For each such distribution, we have a connected component of Bn,j isomorphic to (C∗)n−j. Hence we find that
HBn,j(u,v)=γn,j(uv−1)n−j,for j≥3.(25)
Adding (23), (24) and (25), we obtain Proposition 4.3.
The Hodge-Deligne polynomial HM1,(0+)n
By Propositions 4.1 and 4.3, we obtain the following.
Theorem 4.4. The Hodge-Deligne polynomial HM1,(0+)n=H0∣n of M1,(0+)n is
where αij, βk and γn,k are constants defined by (4.1) and (4.5) respectively.
See Example 5.3 for a computation of H0∣n for n≤10.
By Theorems 4.4 and 3.1, we can now calculate HM1,n(u,v) recursively for all n. By [22], the cycle class map induces an isomorphism
R∗(M1,n)≅H2∗(M1,n)(26)
where R∗(M1,n) denotes the tautological ring and hence we can also compute dimRi(M1,n) as the coefficient of (uv)i in HM1,n(u,v). In particular, the Poincaré polynomial of the tautological ring is the same as the even degree Poincaré polynomial PM1,neven(x).
Computations for n≤10
Letting x=uv, by Proposition 4.1, we can evaluate In as follows.
Note that this matches perfectly with [3 eM1bar.txt] and [12 page 491].
By Theorems 3.1 and 4.4, it is straightforward to write up a computer program that computes the Hodge-Deligne and Poincaré polynomials of M1,n for higher n, quite efficiently. For n=50, we get the following picture for the probability distribution
pn,i=∑k=0ndimH2k(M1,n)dimH2i(M1,n).(27)
The red curve in the picture is the graph of a Gaussian function.
Image not extracted
Figure 1.
In the subsequent paper [5], we will prove that indeed the probability distribution (27) is asymptotically Gaussian. Furthermore, we will prove a formula that gives us effective estimates of the Betti numbers for n large and show that the Betti sequence is asymptotically 3-ultra log concave.
Update on Question 1.4. With the formulas of this paper, the Betti numbers of M1,n can be computed easily for large n, and one can experiment with various properties of the Betti sequence. After posting this paper in the arXiv, Gergely Bérczi informed me that the even degree Poincaré polynomial (or the Poincaré polynomial of the tautological ring) of M1,n is not real-rooted when n=8706. Still it seems reasonable to expect that the even degree Betti sequence is ultra-log-concave (ULC) based on numerical computations.
The reduction to minimally weighted curves was made Sn-equivariant in [19 Theorem 3.9, Remark 3.10], and together with an Sn-equivariant computation for M1,(0+)n, this gives a new proof of Getzler’s formula, answering Question 1.4(1) [6]. In [19], the strategy of this paper is applied to compute the Sn-equivariant Hodge-Deligne polynomials of M2,n, which answers Question 1.4(5) for g=2.
On the other hand, in [5], it was proved for all g≥1 that the even degree Betti sequence of Mg,n is asymptotically 3-ULC but not 4-ULC. Interestingly, the even degree Betti sequence of Mg,(0+)n is also asymptotically normally distributed with slightly larger variance and asymptotically 3-ULC.
References
School of Mathematics, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, 85 Hoegiro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02455, Korea
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