The motivic Hilbert zeta function of a variety $X$ is the generating function for classes in the Grothendieck ring of varieties of Hilbert schemes of points on $X$. In this paper, the motivic Hilbert zeta function of a reduced curve is shown to be rational.

We investigate the connection between Osserman limit series (on curves of pseudocompact type) and Amini–Baker limit linear series (on metrized complexes with corresponding underlying curve) via a notion of pre-limit linear series on curves of the same type. Then, applying the smoothing theorems of Osserman limit linear series, we deduce that, fixing certain metrized complexes, or for certain types of Amini–Baker limit linear series, the smoothability is equivalent to a certain “weak glueing condition”. Also for arbitrary metrized complexes of pseudocompact type the weak glueing condition (when it applies) is necessary for smoothability. As an application we confirm the lifting property of specific divisors on the metric graph associated with a certain regular smoothing family, and give a new proof of a result of Cartright, Jensen, and Payne for vertex-avoiding divisors, and generalize it for divisors of rank one in the sense that, for the metric graph, there could be at most three edges (instead of two) between any pair of adjacent vertices.

We compute Betti numbers for a Cohen–Macaulay tangent cone of a monomial curve in the affine $4$-space corresponding to a pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroup. As a byproduct, we also show that for these semigroups, being of homogeneous type and homogeneous are equivalent properties.

In this paper we study the singularities of the invariant metric of the Poincaré bundle over a family of abelian varieties and their duals over a base of arbitrary dimension. As an application of this study we prove the effectiveness of the height jump divisors for families of pointed abelian varieties. The effectiveness of the height jump divisor was conjectured by Hain in the more general case of variations of polarized Hodge structures of weight $-1$ .

Let $U$ be an affine smooth curve defined over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic. The Abhyankar conjecture (proved by Raynaud and Harbater in 1994) describes the set of finite quotients of Grothendieck’s étale fundamental group $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}_{1}^{\acute{\text{e}}\text{t}}(U)$. In this paper, we consider a purely inseparable analogue of this problem, formulated in terms of Nori’s profinite fundamental group scheme $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}^{N}(U)$, and give a partial answer to it.

We study Higgs bundles over an elliptic curve with complex reductive structure group, describing the (normalisation of) its moduli spaces and the associated Hitchin fibration. The case of trivial degree is covered by the work of Thaddeus in 2001. Our arguments are different from those of Thaddeus and cover arbitrary degree.

We prove model completeness for the expansion of the real field by the Weierstrass ℘ function as a function of the variable z and the parameter (or period) τ. We need to existentially define the partial derivatives of the ℘ function with respect to the variable z and the parameter τ. To obtain this result, it is necessary to include in the structure function symbols for the unrestricted exponential function and restricted sine function, the Weierstrass ζ function and the quasi-modular form E2 (we conjecture that these functions are not existentially definable from the functions ℘ alone or even if we use the exponential and restricted sine functions). We prove some auxiliary model-completeness results with the same functions composed with appropriate change of variables. In the conclusion, we make some remarks about the non-effectiveness of our proof and the difficulties to be overcome to obtain an effective model-completeness result, and how to extend these results to appropriate expansion of the real field by automorphic forms.

In this paper we construct a $\mathbb{Q}$-linear tannakian category $\mathsf{MEM}_{1}$ of universal mixed elliptic motives over the moduli space ${\mathcal{M}}_{1,1}$ of elliptic curves. It contains $\mathsf{MTM}$, the category of mixed Tate motives unramified over the integers. Each object of $\mathsf{MEM}_{1}$ is an object of $\mathsf{MTM}$ endowed with an action of $\text{SL}_{2}(\mathbb{Z})$ that is compatible with its structure. Universal mixed elliptic motives can be thought of as motivic local systems over ${\mathcal{M}}_{1,1}$ whose fiber over the tangential base point $\unicode[STIX]{x2202}/\unicode[STIX]{x2202}q$ at the cusp is a mixed Tate motive. The basic structure of the tannakian fundamental group of $\mathsf{MEM}$ is determined and the lowest order terms of a set (conjecturally, a minimal generating set) of relations are deduced from computations of Brown. This set of relations includes the arithmetic relations, which describe the ‘infinitesimal Galois action’. We use the presentation to give a new and more conceptual proof of the Ihara–Takao congruences.

For a pair $(R,I)$, where $R$ is a standard graded domain of dimension $d$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0, and $I$ is a graded ideal of finite colength, we prove that the existence of $\lim _{p\rightarrow \infty }e_{HK}(R_{p},I_{p})$ is equivalent, for any fixed $m\geqslant d-1$, to the existence of $\lim _{p\rightarrow \infty }\ell (R_{p}/I_{p}^{[p^{m}]})/p^{md}$. This we get as a consequence of Theorem 1.1: as $p\longrightarrow \infty$, the convergence of the Hilbert–Kunz (HK) density function $f(R_{p},I_{p})$ is equivalent to the convergence of the truncated HK density functions $f_{m}(R_{p},I_{p})$ (in $L^{\infty }$ norm) of the mod $p$reductions$(R_{p},I_{p})$, for any fixed $m\geqslant d-1$. In particular, to define the HK density function $f_{R,I}^{\infty }$ in char 0, it is enough to prove the existence of $\lim _{p\rightarrow \infty }f_{m}(R_{p},I_{p})$, for any fixed $m\geqslant d-1$. This allows us to prove the existence of $e_{HK}^{\infty }(R,I)$ in many new cases, for example, when Proj R is a Segre product of curves.

We compute the Alexander polynomial of a nonreduced nonirreducible complex projective plane curve with mutually coprime orders of vanishing along its irreducible components in terms of certain multiplier ideals.

In this paper, we prove that the set of equivalence classes of dormant opers of rank $p-1$ over a projective smooth curve of genus ${\geqslant}2$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p>0$ is of cardinality one.

We rewrite in modern language a classical construction by W. E. Edge showing a pencil of sextic nodal curves admitting A5 as its group of automorphism. Next, we discuss some other aspects of this pencil, such as the associated fibration and its connection to the singularities of the moduli of six-dimensional abelian varieties.

Gromov–Witten invariants have been constructed to be deformation invariant, but their behavior under other transformations is subtle. We show that logarithmic Gromov–Witten invariants are also invariant under appropriately defined logarithmic modifications.

We show that the canonical lift construction for ordinary elliptic curves over perfect fields of characteristic $p>0$ extends uniquely to arbitrary families of ordinary elliptic curves, even over $p$-adic formal schemes. In particular, the universal ordinary elliptic curve has a canonical lift. The existence statement is largely a formal consequence of the universal property of Witt vectors applied to the moduli space of ordinary elliptic curves, at least with enough level structure. As an application, we show how this point of view allows for more formal proofs of recent results of Finotti and Erdoğan.

Inthis paper, for each $n\geqslant g\geqslant 0$ we consider the moduli stack $\widetilde{{\mathcal{U}}}_{g,n}^{ns}$ of curves $(C,p_{1},\ldots ,p_{n},v_{1},\ldots ,v_{n})$ of arithmetic genus $g$ with $n$ smooth marked points $p_{i}$ and nonzero tangent vectors $v_{i}$ at them, such that the divisor $p_{1}+\cdots +p_{n}$ is nonspecial (has $h^{1}=0$) and ample. With some mild restrictions on the characteristic we show that it is a scheme, affine over the Grassmannian $G(n-g,n)$. We also construct an isomorphism of $\widetilde{{\mathcal{U}}}_{g,n}^{ns}$ with a certain relative moduli of $A_{\infty }$-structures (up to an equivalence) over a family of graded associative algebras parametrized by $G(n-g,n)$.

Affine varieties among all algebraic varieties have simple structures. For example, an affine variety does not contain any complete algebraic curve. In this paper, we study affine-related properties of strata of $k$-differentials on smooth curves which parameterize sections of the $k$th power of the canonical line bundle with prescribed orders of zeros and poles. We show that if there is a prescribed pole of order at least $k$, then the corresponding stratum does not contain any complete curve. Moreover, we explore the amusing question whether affine invariant manifolds arising from Teichmüller dynamics are affine varieties, and confirm the answer for Teichmüller curves, Hurwitz spaces of torus coverings, hyperelliptic strata as well as some low genus strata.

Let $C$ be a Petri general curve of genus $g$ and $E$ a general stable vector bundle of rank $r$ and slope $g-1$ over $C$ with $h^{0}(C,E)=r+1$ . For $g\geqslant (2r+2)(2r+1)$ , we show how the bundle $E$ can be recovered from the tangent cone to the generalised theta divisor $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E9}_{E}$ at ${\mathcal{O}}_{C}$ . We use this to give a constructive proof and a sharpening of Brivio and Verra’s theorem that the theta map $\mathit{SU}_{C}(r){\dashrightarrow}|r\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E9}|$ is generically injective for large values of $g$ .

We show that a genus $2$ curve over a number field whose jacobian has complex multiplication will usually have stable bad reduction at some prime. We prove this by computing the Faltings height of the jacobian in two different ways. First, we use a known case of the Colmez conjecture, due to Colmez and Obus, that is valid when the CM field is an abelian extension of the rationals. It links the height and the logarithmic derivatives of an $L$ -function. The second formula involves a decomposition of the height into local terms based on a hyperelliptic model. We use the reduction theory of genus $2$ curves as developed by Igusa, Liu, Saito, and Ueno to relate the contribution at the finite places with the stable bad reduction of the curve. The subconvexity bounds by Michel and Venkatesh together with an equidistribution result of Zhang are used to bound the infinite places.

We study various measures of irrationality for hypersurfaces of large degree in projective space and other varieties. These include the least degree of a rational covering of projective space, and the minimal gonality of a covering family of curves. The theme is that positivity properties of canonical bundles lead to lower bounds on these invariants. In particular, we prove that if $X\subseteq \mathbf{P}^{n+1}$ is a very general smooth hypersurface of dimension $n$ and degree $d\geqslant 2n+1$ , then any dominant rational mapping $f:X{\dashrightarrow}\mathbf{P}^{n}$ must have degree at least $d-1$ . We also propose a number of open problems, and we show how our methods lead to simple new proofs of results of Ran and Beheshti–Eisenbud concerning varieties of multi-secant lines.

We prove a version of Clifford’s theorem for metrized complexes. Namely, a metrized complex that carries a divisor of degree $2r$ and rank $r$ (for $0<r<g-1$ ) also carries a divisor of degree 2 and rank 1. We provide a structure theorem for hyperelliptic metrized complexes, and use it to classify divisors of degree bounded by the genus. We discuss a tropical version of Martens’ theorem for metric graphs.