Infinitesimal deformations of nodal stable curves (Q2437417)

This paper deals with family of stable curves in the analytic setting and is in some sense a companion to the article [\textit{J. Hubbard and S. Koch}, ``An analytic construction of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of curves'', J. Differ. Geom. (to appear), \url{arXiv:1301.0062}]. In the latter paper, the analytic space underlying the Deligne-Mumford compactification of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\) is given in terms of Teichmüller theory. In particular, this article describes the cotangent space of this moduli space in analytic terms. If \(\pi:\mathcal{C}\longrightarrow\mathcal{B}\) is a family of stable curves (essentially given in local coordinates by \(\pi(z,w,t)=t\) where \((z,w,t)\) satisfies \(zw=t\)), there exists a subsheaf \(\mathcal{V}\) of \(\omega^2_{\mathcal{C}/\mathcal{B}}\) defined by the vanishing of a certain residue map such that the direct image \(\pi_*\mathcal{V}\) computes the cotangent bundle of the base \(\mathcal{B}\). This result is thus a generalization of the fact that the quadratic differentials are the cotangent vectors in the case of smooth families. The pairing between tangent and cotangent vectors is also expressed using this formalism. The proofs are down to earth computations in local coordinates and this paper could be useful to those who would like to have an insight on the analytic counterpart of the algebraic theory of families of stable curves.