A bound on the dimensions of complete subvarieties of \({\mathcal M}_ g\). (Q1068145)

Main result: Let Z be a complete subvariety of the coarse moduli space \(M_ g\) of curves of genus \(g\geq 3\). Then, we have dim \(Z\leq g-2.\) The idea of the proof is as follows. Define \(H_ g(i,j)\) \(by\) H\({}_ g(i,j)=\{[C]\in M_ g:\) there exists a finite map \(f:C\to {\mathbb{P}}^ 1\) with degree \(f\leq i\), and the number of points in \(f^{- 1}(\{0,\infty \})\) not counting multiplicity is less than or equal to \(j\}\). Then, \(H_ g(i,j)\) is a Zariski closed subset of \(M_ g\) and we have a stratification \(M_ g=H_ g(k,g)\supset H_ g(k,g-1)\supset...\supset H_ g(k,2)\supset H_ g(k,1)=\emptyset\) for some fixed integer \(k\geq g\). Since \(H_ g(i,j)-H_ g(i,j-1)\) does not contain a complete curve (lemma 3), an n-dimensional subvariety of \(H_ g(k,i)\) meets \(H_ g(k,i-1)\) in at least an (n-1)-dimensional complete subvariety. This proves the theorem.