Normalization of the 1-stratum of the moduli space of stable curves (Q692857)

For a stable curve \(C\), the dual graph is the weighted graph \(\Gamma\), such that: the vertices of \(\Gamma\) correspond to irreducible components of \(C\), the edges of \(\Gamma\) correspond to nodes joining the two components corresponding to the two endpoints and the weights on the vertices of \(\Gamma\) are the genera of the normalizations of the corresponding components of \(C\). Let \(\Gamma\) be now a fixed abstract weighted graph. Then \(\mathfrak{M}_g(\Gamma)\) is the substack of the stack \(\overline{\mathfrak{M}}_g\) of stable curves consisting of curves with dual graphs \(\Gamma\). This is a locally closed substack. The current paper analizes the above substacks, concentrating on their normalizations. Though a general method of understanding normalizations of moduli functors (if possible at all) would be very much desired, the authors here follow a different path. An explicit normalization is constructed, given by the special setup of stable curves: every stable curve can be constructed by gluing the normalizations of its components. In the case of weighted graphs \(\Gamma\) that yield 1 dimensional strata of \(\overline{\mathfrak{M}}_g\), the normalization is even more explicitly described as a gerbe over an orbifold.