The geometry of the moduli space of curves of genus 23 (Q1586933)

The problem of determining the geometry of the moduli space \({\mathcal M}_g\) of curves of genus \(g\) is quite classical in algebraic geometry. F. Severi's classical result (1915) was that \({\mathcal M}_g\) is unirational for \(g\leq 10\), and only in the eighties it was proved (by Eisenbud, Harris and Mumford) that \({\mathcal M}_g\) is of general type for \(g \geq 24\) and (by Chang, Ran and Sernesi) that \({\mathcal M}_g\) is unirational also for \(g=11,12,13\). The main result in this paper is that the Kodaira dimension of \({\mathcal M}_{23}\) is \(\geq 2\) (it was already known that it is \(\geq 1\)). The result is attained by studing the multicanonical linear systems on \({\mathcal M}_{23}\) that are determined by its divisors \({\mathcal M}^1_{12}\), \({\mathcal M}^2_{17}\) and \({\mathcal M}^3_{20}\), which are proved to be mutually distinct. Evidence is given also that we actually should have \(\kappa ({\mathcal M}_{23})=2\).