Speaker: Carel Faber
Title: Intersection theory on the moduli space of curves.
Affiliation: KTH, Stockholm and OSU.
Date: Friday, February 4.
Place and Time: Room 101 - Love Building, 3:35-4:35 pm.
Refreshments: Room 204 - Love Building, 3:00 pm.

Abstract. In the last few years, the moduli space of algebraic curves has become one of the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, especially since the work of Witten, Kontsevich and many others has unearthed unexpected connections with string theory and quantum gravity. These connections are encoded in the intersection numbers of suitable classes on the moduli space: it has therefore become very important to study the intersection theory of these spaces. In this talk we will review the definition and some basic properties of the moduli space of curves, and present our (as yet conjectural) description of an important part of its intersection ring. We will also report on recent joint work with R. Pandharipande at Caltech, that points toward a possible proof of the conjecture.