Faber's tautological-algebra conjecture for the moduli space of curves

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Let Mg{\mathbf M}_g be the moduli space of smooth genus-gg curves, and let R∗(Mg){\cal R}^*({\mathbf M}_g) be its tautological algebra, with tautological classes κi\kappa_i. Faber's conjecture. The algebra R∗(Mg){\cal R}^*({\mathbf M}_g) behaves like the cohomology algebra of a nonsingular projective variety of dimension g−2g-2: it vanishes in degrees greater than g−2g-2, is one dimensional in degree g−2g-2, and the pairing

Ri(Mg)×Rg−2−i(Mg)⟶Rg−2(Mg){\cal R}^{i}({\mathbf M}_g)\times {\cal R}^{g-2-i}({\mathbf M}_g)\longrightarrow {\cal R}^{g-2}({\mathbf M}_g)

is perfect; it also satisfies Hard Lefschetz and Hodge Positivity with respect to κ1\kappa_1. Moreover, the [g/3][g/3] classes κ1,…,κ[g/3]\kappa_1,\ldots,\kappa_{[g/3]} generate the algebra with no relations in degrees at most [g/3][g/3], and there are explicit formulas for the proportionalities in degree g−2g-2. The source notes that the generation assertion is proved there at the level of rational cohomology, while the remaining structural and proportionality assertions are presented as conjectural.

References

Primary source

Shigeyuki Morita, “Structure of the mapping class groups of surfaces: a survey and a prospect”, arXiv:math/9911258 (1999).

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