Topological aspects of the dynamical moduli space of rational maps (Q2074835)

For each positive integer \(d\), let \(\mathrm{Rat}_d\) denote the space of rational functions of the form \[ f(z)=\frac{p(z)}{q(z)}= \frac{a_0z^d+a_1z^{d-1}+\cdots +a_d}{b_0z^d+b_1z^{d-1}+\cdots +b_d}, \leqno{(*)} \] where the polynomials \(p(z)\) and \(q(z)\) are complex coefficients polynomials in \(\mathbb{C} [z]\) and have no common factor with \((a_0,b_0)\not= (0,0)\). Let \(\mathrm{Rat}_d^*\subset \mathrm{Rat}_d\) denote the subspace of \(f(z)\) of the above form \((*)\) satisfying the condition \(a_0=b_0\). We can easily identify each element \(f(z)\in \mathrm{Rat}_d\) (resp. \(f(z)\in \mathrm{Rat}_d^*\)) with the (resp. base-point preserving) rational map \(f:\mathbb{C}\mathrm{P}^1\to \mathbb{C}\mathrm{P}^1\) of degree \(d\). Note that the space \(\mathrm{Rat}_d\) has a natural action of the group \(\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) given by the conjugation \(\alpha \cdot f=\alpha \circ f\circ \alpha^{-1}\) for \((\alpha,f)\in \mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{C})\times \mathrm{Rat}_d\). Let \(\mathcal{M}_d\) denote the quotient space \(\mathcal{M}_d=\mathrm{Rat}_d/\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{C})\); this is called the space of Möbius conjugacy classes of degree \(d\) rational maps on the Riemann sphere. In this paper the authors investigate the topology of the space \(\mathcal{M}_d\). In particular, they prove that the space \(\mathcal{M}_d\) is rationally acyclic if \(d>1\) and compute its fundamental group explicitly. Moreover, they show that the space \(\mathcal{M}_d\) is not contractible if \(d\geq 7\) and determine the rank of \(\pi_i(\mathrm{Rat}_d)\) and \(\pi_i(\mathrm{Rat}_d^*)\) explicitly when \(d>3\) and \(d\leq i\leq 2d-2\). As an application they also show that the spaces \(\mathrm{Rat}_d\) and \(\mathrm{Rat}_d^*\) are not nilpotent. Their proof is based on the rational Hurewicz theorem and the generalized Leray-Hirsh theorem with several previous results obtained by several mathematicians.