Irreducible Contact Curves via Graph Stratification

Abstract

We prove that the moduli space of contact stable maps to $\mathbb{P}^{2n+1}$ of degree $d$ admits a stratification parameterized by graphs. We use it to determine the number of irreducible rational contact curves in $\mathbb{P}^{2n+1}$ with any Schubert condition. We give explicitely some of these invariants for $\mathbb{P}^{3}$ and $\mathbb{P}^{5}$. We give another proof of the formula for the number of plane contact curves in $\mathbb{P}^{3}$ meeting the appropriate number of lines.