The asymptotic Weil-Petersson form and intersection theory on M_{g,n}

Abstract

Moduli spaces of hyperbolic surfaces with geodesic boundary components of fixed lengths may be endowed with a symplectic structure via the Weil-Petersson form. We show that, as the boundary lengths are sent to infinity, the Weil-Petersson form converges to a piecewise linear form first defined by Kontsevich. The proof rests on the observation that a hyperbolic surface with large boundary lengths resembles a graph after appropriately scaling the hyperbolic metric. We also include some applications to intersection theory on moduli spaces of curves.