Harer stability and orbifold cohomology (Q2510052)

This paper builds on important work concerning the ``stable cohomology'' of the moduli space of smooth pointed curves. It relates to a sequence of fundamental results beginning with \textit{J. L. Harer} [Ann. Math. (2) 121, 215--249 (1985; Zbl 0579.57005)], and culminating in the proof by \textit{I. Madsen} and \textit{M. Weiss} [Ann. Math. (2) 165, No. 3, 843--941 (2007; Zbl 1156.14021)] that the stable cohomology of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\) is generated by the kappa and psi classes. The interesting change of perspective in this paper, which goes back to a lecture of \textit{B. Fantechi} [``Inertia stack of \(M_{g,n}\)'', talk MSRI, Berkeley, CA, February 23--27 2009, Available at \url{http://www.msri.org/workshops/472/schedules/3657}], is that one might also expect stabilization results in the Chen-Ruan orbifold cohomology of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\), taking into account the twisted sectors. This main result of this paper shows that as the genus gets large, the orbifold cohomology of the space of pointed curves reduces to its usual cohomology. The primary technical contribution of this paper is a careful study twisted sectors of the orbifold cohomology of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\), and a proof that the sector of minimal age is the hyperelliptic locus, where the marked points are Weierstrass points. This reduces the problem to understanding the contribution of the hyperelliptic twisted sector. It follows that for a fixed degree, the orbifold cohomology of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\) coincides with the usual cohomology once the genus is sufficiently large. These results are then combined, degree-by-degree, with the known stabilization results for cohomology of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\) to show that as the genus tends to infinity, the orbifold cohomology reduces to the usual cohomology.