Relations in the tautological ring of the moduli space of curves (Q2032695)

Let \(\mathcal{M}_g\) be the space of nonsingular, projective, genus \(g\) curves over \(\mathbb{C}\). A classical fundamental problem is the study of its (Chow) cohomology ring and in particular the structure of a certain subring, the \emph{tautological ring}. To set some notation, denote by \(\pi:\mathcal{C}_g\to \mathcal{M}_g\) the universal curve and by \(\omega_\pi\) the dualizing sheaf. Define the \emph{cotangent line class} \[ \psi=c_1(\omega_\pi)\in A^1(\mathcal{C}_g, \mathbb{Q}) \] and the \emph{kappa} classes \[ \kappa_r=\pi_*(\psi^{r+1})\in A^r(\mathcal{M}_g). \] The tautological ring \[ R^*(\mathcal{M}_g)\subset A^r(\mathcal{M}_g, \mathbb{Q}) \] is the \(\mathbb{Q}\)-subalgebra generated by all the \(\kappa\) classes, in other words there is a presentation \[ \mathbb{Q}[\kappa_1, \kappa_2, \dots]\to R^*(\mathcal{M}_g)\to 0. \] By Mumford's conjecture -- proved by \textit{I. Madsen} and \textit{M. Weiss} [Ann. Math. (2) 165, No. 3, 843--941 (2007; Zbl 1156.14021)] -- the kappa classes exhaust all the \emph{stable cohomology} \[ \lim_{g\to \infty}H^*(\mathcal{M}_g, \mathbb{Q})=\mathbb{Q}[\kappa_1, \kappa_2, \dots]. \] Taking the opposite perspective, for a fixed \(g\) one may ask which relations generate the tautological ring. Furthermore, from the enumerative point of view, a large body of cycle class computations on \(\mathcal{M}_g\) lie in the tautological ring, and appear naturally in various algebro-geometric contexts (such as Brill-Noether theory). Faber-Zagier conjectured a remarkable set of relations among the kappa classes in the tautological ring \( R^*(\mathcal{M}_g)\). The main result of the authors is a proof of such relations -- under a suitable formulation of the latter -- by a geometric construction involving the virtual class of the moduli space of stable quotients. The authors define the polynomial \[ \gamma^{FZ}=\sum_\sigma\sum_{r=0}^\infty C_r^{FZ}(\sigma), \kappa_r t^r \mathbf{p}^\sigma, \] where \(\sigma\) is a partition, \(t,\mathbf{p} \) are (multi)variables and \(C_r^{FZ}(\sigma) \) are some given explicit constants. The main result of the authors is the Faber-Zagier relation in \(R^r(\mathcal{M}_g)\) \[ [\exp(-\gamma^{FZ})]_{t^r\mathbf{p}^\sigma}=0, \] whenever \(g-1+|\sigma|< 3r\) and \(g\equiv r+|\sigma|+1 \bmod 2\). Here, \([-]_{t^r\mathbf{p}^\sigma} \) denotes the coefficient of \(t^r\mathbf{p}^\sigma\), which is a polynomial in the \(\kappa_r\). It has to be noticed that this result yields \emph{finitely} many relations, for every given genus \(g\) and codimension \(r\). The main result is obtained via Graber-Pandharipande virtual localization on the moduli space of stable quotients, where the problem is addressed with a combination of techniques from Geometry and Combinatorics.