Volumes and intersection theory on moduli spaces of Abelian differentials

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Dawei Chen, Institute for Advanced Study/Boston College

Computing volumes of moduli spaces has significance in many fields. For instance, Witten's conjecture regarding intersection numbers on the Deligne鈥揗umford moduli space of stable Riemann surfaces has a fascinating connection to the Weil鈥揚etersson volume, which motivated Mirzakhani to give a proof via Teichmueller theory, hyperbolic geometry, and symplectic geometry. The initial two other proofs of Witten's conjecture by Kontsevich and by Okounkov鈥揚andharipande also used various ideas in combinatorial ribbon graphs, Gromov鈥揥itten theory, and Hurwitz theory. In this talk I will introduce an analogue of Witten's intersection numbers on moduli spaces of Abelian differentials to compute the Masur鈥揤eech volumes induced by the flat metric associated with Abelian differentials. This is joint work with Martin Moeller, Adrien Sauvaget, and Don Zagier (arXiv:).