A Cyclic Operad in the Category of Artin Stacks and Gravitational Correlators

Abstract

We define an Artin stack which may be considered as a substitute for the non-existing (or empty) moduli space of stable two-pointed curves of genus zero. We show that this Artin stack can be viewed as the first term of a cyclic operad in the category of stacks. Applying the homology functor we obtain a linear cyclic operad. We formulate conjectures which assert that cohomology of a smooth projective variety has the structure of an algebra over this homology operad and that gravitational quantum cohomology can naturally expressed in terms of this algebra. As a test for these conjectures we show how certain well-known relations between gravitational correlators can be deduced from them.