The Mori cones of moduli spaces of pointed curves of small genus

Abstract:

We compute the Mori cones of the moduli spaces $\overline M_{g,n}$ of $n$ pointed stable curves of genus $g$, when $g$ and $n$ are relatively small. For instance we show that for $g<14$ every curve in $\overline M_g$ is equivalent to an effective combination of the components of the locus of curves with $3g-4$ nodes. We completely describe the cone of nef divisors for the space $\overline M_{0,6}$, thus verifying Fulton’s conjecture for this space. Using this description we obtain a classification of all the fibrations of $\overline M_{0,6}$.