The Chow ring of the moduli space of curves of genus 6

Abstract

We determine the Chow ring (with Q-coefficients) of M_6 by showing that all Chow classes are tautological. In particular, all algebraic cohomology is tautological, and the natural map from Chow to cohomology is injective. To demonstrate the utility of these methods, we also give quick derivations of the Chow groups of moduli spaces of curves of lower genus. The genus 6 case relies on the particularly beautiful Brill-Noether theory in this case, and in particular on a rank 5 vector bundle "relativizing" a baby case of a celebrated construction of Mukai, which we interpret as a subbundle of the rank 6 vector bundle of quadrics cutting out the canonical curve.