Let $X$ be a smooth projective Fano variety over the complex numbers. We study the moduli space of rational curves on $X$ using the perspective of Manin’s conjecture. In particular, we bound the dimension and number of components of spaces of rational curves on $X$. We propose a geometric Manin’s conjecture predicting the growth rate of a counting function associated to the irreducible components of these moduli spaces.

In this paper we study the singularities of the invariant metric of the Poincaré bundle over a family of abelian varieties and their duals over a base of arbitrary dimension. As an application of this study we prove the effectiveness of the height jump divisors for families of pointed abelian varieties. The effectiveness of the height jump divisor was conjectured by Hain in the more general case of variations of polarized Hodge structures of weight  $-1$ .

We give a large family of weighted projective planes, blown up at a smooth point, that do not have finitely generated Cox rings. We then use the method of Castravet and Tevelev to prove that the moduli space $\overline{M}_{0,n}$ of stable $n$-pointed genus-zero curves does not have a finitely generated Cox ring if $n$ is at least $13$.

In this paper, we investigate examples of good and optimal Drinfeld modular towers of function fields. Surprisingly, the optimality of these towers has not been investigated in full detail in the literature. We also give an algorithmic approach for obtaining explicit defining equations for some of these towers and, in particular, give a new explicit example of an optimal tower over a quadratic finite field.

We prove by the Hilbert–Mumford criterion that a slope stable polarized weighted pointed nodal curve is Chow asymptotic stable. This generalizes the result of Caporaso on stability of polarized nodal curves and of Hassett on weighted pointed stable curves polarized by the weighted dualizing sheaves. It also solves a question raised by Mumford and Gieseker, to prove the Chow asymptotic stability of stable nodal curves by the Hilbert–Mumford criterion.

Let us consider the locus in the moduli space of curves of genus $2k$ defined by curves with a pencil of degree $k$. Since the Brill–Noether number is equal to $- 2$, such a locus has codimension two. Using the method of test surfaces, we compute the class of its closure in the moduli space of stable curves.

We prove that the moduli spaces of n-pointed m-stable curves introduced in our previous paper have projective coarse moduli. We use the resulting spaces to run an analogue of Hassett’s log minimal model program for .

Gaudin subalgebras are abelian Lie subalgebras of maximal dimension spanned by generators of the Kohno–Drinfeld Lie algebra . We show that Gaudin subalgebras form a variety isomorphic to the moduli space of stable curves of genus zero with n+1 marked points. In particular, this gives an embedding of in a Grassmannian of (n−1)-planes in an n(n−1)/2-dimensional space. We show that the sheaf of Gaudin subalgebras over is isomorphic to a sheaf of twisted first-order differential operators. For each representation of the Kohno–Drinfeld Lie algebra with fixed central character, we obtain a sheaf of commutative algebras whose spectrum is a coisotropic subscheme of a twisted version of the logarithmic cotangent bundle of .

We introduce a sequence of isolated curve singularities, the elliptic m-fold points, and an associated sequence of stability conditions, generalizing the usual definition of Deligne–Mumford stability. For every pair of integers 1≤m<n, we prove that the moduli problem of n-pointed m-stable curves of arithmetic genus one is representable by a proper irreducible Deligne–Mumford stack . We also consider weighted variants of these stability conditions, and construct the corresponding moduli stacks . In forthcoming work, we will prove that these stacks have projective coarse moduli and use the resulting spaces to give a complete description of the log minimal model program for .

We compute the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular complex plane quartic curves with two marked points. This allows us to calculate the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular complex projective curves of genus three with two marked points.

We prove the unirationality of the moduli space of complex curves of genus 14. The method essentially relies on linkage of curves. In particular it is shown that a general curve of genus 14 admits a projective model D, in a six-dimensional projective space, which is linked to a general curve C of degree 14 and genus 8 by a complete intersection of quadrics. Using this property we are able to obtain, after a reasonable amount of further work, the unirationality result in the case of genus 14. Moreover, some variations of the same method, involving the Hilbert schemes of curves of very low genus, are used to obtain the same result for the known cases of genus 11, 12, 13.

We compute the mixed Hodge structure on the rational cohomology of the moduli space of smooth genus 4 curves. Specifically, we prove that its Poincaré–Serre polynomial is 1 + t2u2 + t4u4 + t5u6. We show this by producing a stratification of the space, such that all strata are geometric quotients of complements of discriminants.