On the unirationality of moduli spaces of pointed curves (Q2664666)

The authors prove the unirationality of the moduli space \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\) of \(n\)-pointed genus \(g\) curves for \(g=12\) and \(2\le n\le 4\) and for \(g=13\) and \(1\le n\le 3\). They construct suitable dominant families of projective curves, in \(\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb {P}^2\) for \(g=12\) and \(\mathbb {P}^3\) for \(g=13\). The families in \(\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb {P}^2\) and \(\mathbb {P}^3\) are constructed using the Brill-Noether theory of general curves. They give more than one proof of some theorem and reading is pleasant. They also prove several unirationality result for the quotient of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}\) by the action of the symmetric group \(S_n\), i.e. for the moduli space of genus \(g\) curves equipped with a subset of cardinality \(n\): \(g=11\) and \(n=7\), \(g=12\) and \(n=5,6\).