Moduli of framed formal curves

Abstract

We introduce framed formal curves, which are formal algebraic curves with boundary components parametrized by the punctured formal disk. We study the moduli space of nodal framed formal curves, which we endow with a logarithmic structure. We show that this moduli space is a smooth formal logarithmic stack. The remarkable property of our construction is that framed formal curves admit a natural operation of "gluing along the boundary" which works well in families and preserves smoothness (both in a formal and in a logarithmic sense), and this induces gluing maps on the level of moduli. Using moduli spaces of framed formal curves we enhance the operad E2 of little disks (as well as its cousin, the framed little disks operad) to a fully log motivic operad. We use this structure to obtain a purely algebro-geometric proof of the formality of chains on these classical operads (initially proven for little disks by Tamarkin using analytic methods). We also recover and extend the known Galois action on the l-adic cohomology of framed and unframed little disks, and on Drinfeld associators, and extend it to the action on integral chains of a larger group scheme: the logarithmic motivic Galois group. Our methods generalize to a higher genus context, giving new "motivic" enrichments (for example, action by the absolute Galois group and by the log motivic Galois group) on the operad of chains in the oriented geometric bordism operad of Ayala and Lurie, which encodes the algebraic structure on the Hochschild cochains of any fully dualizable DG category.