Stability for closed surfaces in a background space (Q657428)

The goals of this paper are threefold. The first goal is to clarify an error in the authors' previous paper [in: D. Abramovich (ed.) et al., Algebraic geometry, Seattle 2005. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS). Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics 80, Pt. 1, 43--76 (2009; Zbl 1210.57029)]. In there, the statement of Theorem 0.4 stays to be true for \(n>0\), whereas it is in general false for \(n=0\), unless the coefficient system has degree \(0\). In fact, for \(n=0\) a counterexample was provided through a calculation by \textit{S. Morita} in [Proc. Japan Acad., Ser. A 62, 148--151 (1986; Zbl 0595.57010)]. The second goal is to give a new, purely homotopy theoretic proof of the homological stability theorem for moduli spaces of compact surfaces. For this proof the authors develop new methods, which they then use to determine the homotopy type, in a stable range, of the moduli space of closed surfaces for background spaces with marked points. This result generalises previous work by \textit{C. F. Bödigheimer} and \textit{U. Tillmann} [in: J. Aguadé (ed.) et al., Cohomological methods in homotopy theory. Proceedings of the Barcelona conference on algebraic topology (BCAT), Bellaterra, Spain, June 4-10, 1998. Basel: Birkhäuser. Prog. Math. 196, 47--57 (2001; Zbl 0992.57014)]. The third and last goal of the paper is to give a new proof of the result of S. Morita, mentioned above, about the lack of stability of certain homology groups.