Totally geodesic subvarieties in the moduli space of curves

Abstract

In this paper we study totally geodesic subvarieties $Y \subset \mathsf{A}_g$ of the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties with respect to the Siegel metric, for $g\geq 4$. We prove that if $Y$ is generically contained in the Torelli locus, then $\dim Y \leq (7g -2)/3$.