Extreme divisors on \(\overline{M}_{0,7}\) and differences over characteristic 2 (Q6970124)

The authors study the effective cone of divisors on the moduli space \(\overline{M}_{0,7}\) and provide an extensive computational analysis of its extremal structure. Over characteristic~\(0\), they identify \(31\) distinct \(S_7\)-orbits of new extreme divisors, corresponding to more than \(10^5\) individual rays. These examples extend well beyond previously known classes such as boundary or Keel-Vermeire divisors, revealing a surprisingly rich geometry of \(\overline{M}_{0,n}\) even for \(n=7\).\N\NA notable aspect of the paper is the comparison between characteristic~\(0\) and characteristic~\(2\). By performing analogous computations over \(\mathbb{F}_2\), the authors find two additional orbits of extreme divisors that do not appear in characteristic~\(0\), and they construct \(k\)-cycles that are extremal in characteristic~\(2\) for all \(1 \le k \le n-6\). This establishes that the effective cone of \(\overline{M}_{0,n}\) can depend on the characteristic of the ground field.\N\NTheir computational approach combines symmetry reduction under \(S_7\) with convex-geometric and linear programming techniques. The method is further applied to the weighted moduli space \(\overline{M}_{0,\mathcal A}\) with \(\mathcal A=(\tfrac13,\dots,\tfrac13,1)\), where the authors show that the effective cone is polyhedral over any field. They also propose a conjecture on the cone for a blow-up of the Losev-Manin space.\N\NThe work provides strong new evidence of the complexity of the effective cone of \(\overline{M}_{0,n}\) and highlights subtle arithmetic phenomena arising in positive characteristic. It represents a substantial computational and conceptual advance in the birational geometry of \(\overline{M}_{0,n}\).