A construction of the Deligne--Mumford orbifold

Abstract

We define the Deligne Mumford orbifold axiomatically by a universal mapping property, show that this universal mapping property is equivalent to an infinitessimal universal mapping property, and use the latter to give an existence proof.

78 pages. See also http://www.math.ethz.ch/~salamon/ and http://www.math.wisc.edu/~robbin. Submitted to JEMS. Revised October 2005