Moduli spaces of weighted pointed stable rational curves via GIT

We construct the Mumford-Knudsen space of n pointed stable rational curves by a sequence of explicit blow-ups from the GIT quotient (P^1)^n//SL(2) with respect to the symmetric linearization O(1,...,1). The intermediate blown-up spaces turn out to be the moduli spaces of weighted pointed stable curves for suitable ranges of weights. As an application, we provide a new unconditional proof of M. Simpson's Theorem about the log canonical models of the Mumford-Knudsen space. We also give a basis of the Picard group of the moduli spaces of weighted pointed stable curves.Comment: An error (Lemma 5.3 in v1) has been corrected

Deterministic Relay Networks with State Information

Motivated by fading channels and erasure channels, the problem of reliable communication over deterministic relay networks is studied, in which relay nodes receive a function of the incoming signals and a random network state. An achievable rate is characterized for the case in which destination nodes have full knowledge of the state information. If the relay nodes receive a linear function of the incoming signals and the state in a finite field, then the achievable rate is shown to be optimal, meeting the cut-set upper bound on the capacity. This result generalizes on a unified framework the work of Avestimehr, Diggavi, and Tse on the deterministic networks with state dependency, the work of Dana, Gowaikar, Palanki, Hassibi, and Effros on linear erasure networks with interference, and the work of Smith and Vishwanath on linear erasure networks with broadcast.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in proc. IEEE ISIT, June 200