Estimates of Weil-Petersson volumes via effective divisors (Q5953666)

The authors study the asymptotics of the Weil-Petersson volumes of the moduli spaces \(M_{g,n}\) of compact Riemann surfaces of genus \(g\) with \(n\) punctures, for fixed \(n\) as \(g\rightarrow \infty.\) The Mumford class \(k_1\) on \(\overline{M_{g,0}}\) is shown to be proportional to the cohomology class \([\omega _{WP}]\) of the Weil-Petersson form by Wolpert. So the Weil-Petersson volumes \(vol(M_{g,n})\) are up to a normalizing factor the intersection numbers \[ V_{g,n} = \int_{M_{g,n}} k_{1}^{3g-3+n}. \] Yu. Manin and P. G. Zograf also gave estimates of the volume for fixed genus and \(n \rightarrow \infty.\) Theorem 1. Let \(2g-2+n > 0\) and \((g,n) \neq (0,4), (1,1).\) Then \[ V_{g,n+1} \geq \frac{1}{2} (3g-2+n)(7g-7+3n) V_{g,n} + \frac{1}{24^{g}g!}. \] Theorem 2. Let \(g > 1\). Then \[ V_{g,0} \geq \frac{1}{28} V_{g-1,2} + \frac{1}{672} V_{g-1,1} + \frac{1}{14}\sum_{j=2}^{[\frac{g}{2}]} V_{j,1} V_{g-j,1} - \frac{1}{28} (V_{\frac{g}{2}, 1})^2 , \] with \(V_{\frac{g}{2}} = 0,\) if \(g\) is odd. Together with the results of Penner and Grushevsky these imply the existence of constants \(0 < c < C,\) independent of \(n\) such that \[ c^{g}(2g)! \leq \frac{V_{g,n}}{(3g-3+n)!} \leq C^{g}(2g)! \] for all fixed \(n \geq 0\) and large \(g.\)