The moduli space of curves is rigid (Q1005885)

The subject of the paper under review is the study of the deformations of the moduli stack \({\overline{\mathcal M}}_{g,n}\) of genus \(g\) stable curves with \(n\) marked points. The main result is that \({\overline{\mathcal M}}_{g,n}\) is rigid: that is, it has no nontrivial infinitesimal deformations. Two other related results are shown: namely, that the pair \(({\overline{\mathcal M}}_{g,n},\partial{\mathcal M}_{g,n})\), where \(\partial{\mathcal M}_{g,n}\) is the locus of singular stable curves, has no locally trivial deformations, and that the same holds for the coarse moduli space \({\overline{M}}_{g,n}\), with the possible exception of finitely many cases in which \(g+n\leq3\). On the contrary, it is expected that moduli spaces of surfaces have non-trivial infinitesimal deformations in general. A simple example of this phenomenon is given in the last section of the paper. The motivation for this investigation of deformation spaces comes from the following principle, proposed by M. Kapranov in an unpublished manuscript: Given a smooth \(n\)-dimensional variety \(X=X(0)\), we can associate to it a sequence of varieties \(X(i)\) (with \(i\geq 0)\) in which \(X(i+1)\) is the moduli space of varieties obtained as deformations of \(X(i)\). Then this process should stop after \(n\) steps, i.e. \(X(n)\) should be rigid and \(X(n+1)\) should be a point.