Polarized twisted conics and moduli of stable curves of genus two

Abstract

In this paper we introduce the stack of polarized twisted conics and we use it to give a new point of view on ${\overline{\mathcal{M}}}_2$. In particular, we present a new and independent approach to the computation of the integral Chow ring of ${\overline{\mathcal{M}}}_2$, previously determined by Eric Larson.

32 pages, comments are welcome!