Pseudostable Hodge Integrals

Abstract

Abstract This paper initiates a study of Hodge integrals on moduli spaces of pseudostable curves. We prove an explicit comparison formula that allows one to effectively compute any pseudostable Hodge integral in terms of intersection numbers on moduli spaces of stable curves, and we use this comparison to prove that pseudostable Hodge integrals are equal to their stable counterparts when they are linear in lambda classes, but not when they are nonlinear. This suggests that pseudostable Gromov–Witten invariants are equal to usual Gromov–Witten invariants for target curves, but not for higher-dimensional target varieties.