Let $E/\mathbb {Q}(T)$ be a nonisotrivial elliptic curve of rank r. A theorem due to Silverman [‘Heights and the specialization map for families of abelian varieties’, J. reine angew. Math. 342 (1983), 197–211] implies that the rank $r_t$ of the specialisation $E_t/\mathbb {Q}$ is at least r for all but finitely many $t \in \mathbb {Q}$. Moreover, it is conjectured that $r_t \leq r+2$, except for a set of density $0$. When $E/\mathbb {Q}(T)$ has a torsion point of order $2$, under an assumption on the discriminant of a Weierstrass equation for $E/\mathbb {Q}(T)$, we produce an upper bound for $r_t$ that is valid for infinitely many t. We also present two examples of nonisotrivial elliptic curves $E/\mathbb {Q}(T)$ such that $r_t \leq r+1$ for infinitely many t.

We produce a flexible tool for contracting subcurves of logarithmic hyperelliptic curves, which is local around the subcurve and commutes with arbitrary base-change. As an application, we prove that a hyperelliptic multiscale differential determines a sequence of Gorenstein contractions of the underlying nodal curve, such that each meromorphic piece of the differential descends to generate the dualising bundle of one of the Gorenstein contractions. This is the first piece of evidence for a more general conjecture about limits of meromorphic differentials.

We denote by $\mathcal{H}_{d,g,r}$ the Hilbert scheme of smooth curves, which is the union of components whose general point corresponds to a smooth, irreducible, and non-degenerate curve of degree d and genus g in $\mathbb{P}^r.$ In this article, we study $\mathcal{H}_{15,g,5}$ for every possible genus g and determine when it is irreducible. We also study the moduli map $\mathcal{H}_{15,g,5}\rightarrow\mathcal{M}_g$ and several key properties such as gonality of a general element as well as characterizing smooth elements of each component.

This paper contains a method to prove the existence of smooth curves in positive characteristic whose Jacobians have unusual Newton polygons. Using this method, I give a new proof that there exist supersingular curves of genus $4$ in every prime characteristic. More generally, the main result of the paper is that, for every $g \geq 4$ and prime p, every Newton polygon whose p-rank is at least $g-4$ occurs for a smooth curve of genus g in characteristic p. In addition, this method resolves some cases of Oort’s conjecture about Newton polygons of curves.

We classify quasidiagonals of the $SL(2, R)$ action on products of strata or hyperelliptic loci. We use the technique of diamonds developed by Apisa and Wright in order to use induction on this problem.

We show the properness of the moduli stack of stable surfaces over $\mathbb{Z}\left[ {1/30} \right]$, assuming the locally-stable reduction conjecture for stable surfaces. This relies on a local Kawamata–Viehweg vanishing theorem for 3-dimensional log canonical singularities at closed point of characteristic $p \ne 2,3$ and $5$, which are not log canonical centres.

We provide an explicit formula for all primary genus-zero $r$-spin invariants. Our formula is piecewise polynomial in the monodromies at each marked point and in $r$. To deduce the structure of these invariants, we use a tropical realisation of the corresponding cohomological field theories. We observe that the collection of all Witten–Dijkgraaf–Verlinde–Verlinde (WDVV) relations is equivalent to the relations deduced from the fact that genus-zero tropical CohFT cycles are balanced.

We compute the integral Chow ring of the moduli stack of smooth elliptic curves with n marked points for $3\leq n\leq 10$.

In the study of plane curves, one of the problems is to classify the embedded topology of plane curves in the complex projective plane that have a given fixed combinatorial type, where the combinatorial type of a plane curve is data equivalent to the embedded topology in its tubular neighborhood. A pair of plane curves with the same combinatorial type but distinct embedded topology is called a Zariski pair. In this paper, we consider Zariski pairs consisting of conic-line arrangements that arise from Poncelet’s closure theorem. We study unramified double covers of the union of two conics that are induced by a $2m$-sided Poncelet transverse. As an application, we show the existence of families of Zariski pairs of degree $2m+6$ for $m\geq 2$ that consist of reducible curves having two conics and $2m+2$ lines as irreducible components.

Given a connected reductive algebraic group G over an algebraically closed field, we investigate the Picard group of the moduli stack of principal G-bundles over an arbitrary family of smooth curves.

We study the Abel-Jacobi image of the Ceresa cycle $W_{k, e}-W_{k, e}^-$, where $W_{k, e}$ is the image of the k-th symmetric product of a curve X with a base point e on its Jacobian variety. For certain Fermat quotient curves of genus g, we prove that for any choice of the base point and $k \leq g-2$, the Abel-Jacobi image of the Ceresa cycle is non-torsion. In particular, these cycles are non-torsion modulo rational equivalence.

We show that, for any prime p, there exist absolutely simple abelian varieties over $\mathbb {Q}$ with arbitrarily large p-torsion in their Tate-Shafarevich groups. To prove this, we construct explicit $\mu _p$-covers of Jacobians of curves of the form $y^p = x(x-1)(x-a)$ which violate the Hasse principle. In the appendix, Tom Fisher explains how to interpret our proof in terms of a Cassels-Tate pairing.

Oda’s problem, which deals with the fixed field of the universal monodromy representation of moduli spaces of curves and its independence with respect to the topological data, is a central question of anabelian arithmetic geometry. This paper emphasizes the stack nature of this problem by establishing the independence of monodromy fields with respect to finer special loci data of curves with symmetries, which we show provides a new proof of Oda’s prediction.

We provide a complete description of realizable period representations for meromorphic differentials on Riemann surfaces with prescribed orders of zeros and poles, hyperelliptic structure and spin parity.

We introduce the abstract notion of a smoothable fine compactified Jacobian of a nodal curve, and of a family of nodal curves whose general element is smooth. Then we introduce the combinatorial notion of a stability assignment for line bundles and their degenerations.

We prove that smoothable fine compactified Jacobians are in bijection with these stability assignments.

We then turn our attention to fine compactified universal Jacobians – that is, fine compactified Jacobians for the moduli space $\overline {\mathcal {M}}_g$ of stable curves (without marked points). We prove that every fine compactified universal Jacobian is isomorphic to the one first constructed by Caporaso, Pandharipande and Simpson in the nineties. In particular, without marked points, there exists no fine compactified universal Jacobian unless $\gcd (d+1-g, 2g-2)=1$.

We present a new version of a generalisation to elliptic nets of a theorem of Ward [‘Memoir on elliptic divisibility sequences’, Amer. J. Math. 70 (1948), 31–74] on symmetry of elliptic divisibility sequences. Our results cover all that is known today.

This paper is the first part in a series of three papers devoted to the study of enumerative invariants of abelian surfaces through the tropical approach. In this paper, we consider the enumeration of genus g curves of fixed degree passing through g points. We compute the tropical multiplicity provided by a correspondence theorem due to T. Nishinou and show that it is possible to refine this multiplicity in the style of the Block–Göttsche refined multiplicity to get tropical refined invariants.

We show that if F is $\mathbb{Q}$ or a multiquadratic number field, $p\in\left\{{2,3,5}\right\}$, and $K/F$ is a Galois extension of degree a power of p, then for elliptic curves $E/\mathbb{Q}$ ordered by height, the average dimension of the p-Selmer groups of $E/K$ is bounded. In particular, this provides a bound for the average K-rank of elliptic curves $E/\mathbb{Q}$ for such K. Additionally, we give bounds for certain representation–theoretic invariants of Mordell–Weil groups over Galois extensions of such F.

The central result is that: for each finite Galois extension $K/F$ of number fields and prime number p, as $E/\mathbb{Q}$ varies, the difference in dimension between the Galois fixed space in the p-Selmer group of $E/K$ and the p-Selmer group of $E/F$ has bounded average.

The Hankel index of a real variety X is an invariant that quantifies the difference between nonnegative quadrics and sums of squares on X. In [5], the authors proved an intriguing bound on the Hankel index in terms of the Green–Lazarsfeld index, which measures the ‘linearity’ of the minimal free resolution of the ideal of X. In all previously known cases, this bound was tight. We provide the first class of examples where the bound is not tight; in fact, the difference between Hankel index and Green–Lazarsfeld index can be arbitrarily large. Our examples are outer projections of rational normal curves, where we identify the center of projection with a binary form F. The Green–Lazarsfeld index of the projected curve is given by the complex Waring border rank of F [16]. We show that the Hankel index is given by the almost real rank of F, which is a new notion that comes from decomposing F as a sum of powers of almost real forms. Finally, we determine the range of possible and typical almost real ranks for binary forms.

For $g\ge 2$ and $n\ge 0$, let $\mathcal {H}_{g,n}\subset \mathcal {M}_{g,n}$ denote the complex moduli stack of n-marked smooth hyperelliptic curves of genus g. A normal crossings compactification of this space is provided by the theory of pointed admissible $\mathbb {Z}/2\mathbb {Z}$-covers. We explicitly determine the resulting dual complex, and we use this to define a graph complex which computes the weight zero compactly supported cohomology of $\mathcal {H}_{g, n}$. Using this graph complex, we give a sum-over-graphs formula for the $S_n$-equivariant weight zero compactly supported Euler characteristic of $\mathcal {H}_{g, n}$. This formula allows for the computer-aided calculation, for each $g\le 7$, of the generating function $\mathsf {h}_g$ for these equivariant Euler characteristics for all n. More generally, we determine the dual complex of the boundary in any moduli space of pointed admissible G-covers of genus zero curves, when G is abelian, as a symmetric $\Delta $-complex. We use these complexes to generalize our formula for $\mathsf {h}_g$ to moduli spaces of n-pointed smooth abelian covers of genus zero curves.