A remark on a conjecture of Hain and Looijenga

Abstract

After recalling the various tautological algebras of the moduli space of curves and some of its partial compactifications and stating several well-known results and conjectures concerning these algebras, we prove that the natural extension to the case of pointed curves of a 1996 conjecture of Hain and Looijenga is true if and only if two of the stated conjectures are true.