The Picard group of the moduli space of curves with level structures (Q410100)

Denoting by \(\text{Pic}({\mathcal M}_g)\) the Picard group of the moduli space \({\mathcal M}_g\) of Riemann surfaces of genus \(g\) (the set of algebraic line bundles on \({\mathcal M}_g\) under tensor products), \textit{D. Mumford} [J. Anal. Math. 18, 227--244 (1967; Zbl 0173.22903)] showed that the first Chern class induces an isomorphism \(\text{Pic}({\mathcal M}_g) \cong \text{H}^2(\text{Mod}_g;\mathbb Z)\) of the Picard group with the second integral cohomology of the mapping class group \(\text{Mod}_g\) (isomorphic to \(\mathbb Z\) for large \(g\) by a result of Harer, confirming a conjecture of Mumford). The first result of the present paper is a level \(L\) version of such an isomorphism: \(\text{Pic}({\mathcal M}_g(L)) \cong \text{H}^2(\text{Mod}_g(L);\mathbb Z)\) for each integer \(L \geq 2\) not divisible by 4 (which is assumed for purely technical reasons); here \(\text{Mod}_g(L)\) denotes the level \(L\) subgroup of \(\text{Mod}_g\), i.e. all mapping classes acting trivially on the first homology of the surface with coefficients in the integers mod \(L\), and \({\mathcal M}_g(L)\) the corresponding finite covering of \({\mathcal M}_g(L)\) (the moduli space of curves with level \(L\) structures; as the author notes, these are fine moduli spaces rather than merely coarse ones, and a key point here is the fact that Riemann surfaces can have automorphisms whereas Riemann surfaces with fixed level structures cannot). The bulk of the present paper is then devoted to the following. ``We determine the divisibility properties of the standard line bundles over these moduli spaces, and we calculate the second integral cohomology group of the level \(L\) subgroup of the mapping class group. (In a previous paper [Adv. Math. 229, No. 2, 1205--1234 (2012; Zbl 1250.14019)] the author determined this rationally.) This entails calculating the abelianization of the level \(L\) subgroup of the mapping class group, generalizing previous results of Perron, Sato and the author. Finally, along the way we calculate the first homology of the symplectic group \(\text{Sp}_{2g}(\mathbb Z/L)\) with coefficients in the adjoint representation.''