Equivariant versal deformations of semistable curves (Q737117)

The main result of the paper shows that given any \(n\)-pointed prestable curve \(C\) of genus \(g\) with linearly reductive automorphism group \(\text{Aut}(C)\), there exists an \(\text{Aut}(C)\)-equivalent miniversal deformation of \(C\) over an affine variety \(W\). In other words, it means that the algebraic stack \(\mathfrak{M}_{g,n}\) parameterizing \(n\)-pointed prestable curves of genus \(g\) has an étale neighborhood of \([C]\) isomorphic to the quotient stack \([W/\text{Aut}(C)]\). The main technique employed to prove the result is based on stacks of log structures.