Types of connected components of the singular locus of the moduli space of compact Riemann surfaces

Abstract In 2012 G. Bartolini and M. Izquierdo showed that all equisymmetric strata of Broughton’s stratification, corresponding to the actions of groups of order 2 and 3 on Riemann surfaces of genus g are contained in the same connected component $$\mathcal {C}_g^{2,3}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>C</mml:mi> <mml:mi>g</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> of the singular locus $$\mathcal {S}_g$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>S</mml:mi> <mml:mi>g</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> . The other components that were known to the literature were those composed of points of certain single strata. This motivated the question of whether the singular locus can contain connected components different from $$\mathcal {C}_g^{2,3}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>C</mml:mi> <mml:mi>g</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> and being the union of at least two strata. The existence of such components was proved for infinitely many genera by G. Gromadzki and the author. In this paper, we will describe and classify all types of connected components of the singular locus. In particular, we prove that every connected component different than $$\mathcal {C}_g^{2,3}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>C</mml:mi> <mml:mi>g</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> coincides with some Cornalba component, and we give necessary and sufficient conditions for a cyclic action to define such a component.